Artists

Hector McDonnell

Born in the village of Glenarm, Co. Antrim, the youngest son of the thirteenth Earl of Antrim and his artist-wife, Hector McDonnell has travelled widely and earned a reputation as a painter of the highest calibre throughout much of Europe and Asia. He studied art in Munich and Vienna before taking a degree in History at Oxford University. During the 1970s and 1980s he exhibited almost solely with Fischer Fine Art in London, and with them his work was shown to audiences in Europe, including two high-profile exhibitions in Paris promoting Contemporary International Realism. In 1978 he was awarded one of Germany's most prestigious art prizes, the Darmstadter Kunstpreis, which gained him a major solo show there in the Darmstadt art gallery in 1981. The 1990s saw him travelling extensively in Tibet and Pakistan, with several books of the resulting etchings being published. When Fischer Fine Art closed their doors in 1992, McDonnell returned to live in Ireland, exhibiting through the Bell Gallery, Belfast, Grant Fine Art, Newcastle, and the Lad Lane and Solomon Galleries, Dublin.
Back to previous page