Collections
Portrait, Vera Klute ARHA (1968- ), 'Patrick G. O'Shea'
Painting in oil on canvas, framed, of Patrick G. O'Shea (President, University College, Cork, 2017-2020).
Ref: UCCHS.Portrait015 © University College Cork
Portrait, Patrick G. O'Shea. Vera Klute ARHA, German. Oil on linen. Signed bottom right. 2017. 140 x 110 cm (frame), 120 x 90 cm (canvas). University College Cork.
Prof. O'Shea (President, UCC, 2017-2020) is portrayed standing with steel lift doors in the background, holding a slide rule in his right hand and gesturing in teaching mode with his other hand. He is shown wearing a bowtie that is decorated with the UCC Skull and Crossbones and wearing a UCC crest lapel pin on the left front shoulder.
Artist: Vera Klute ARHA (1981- )
Provenance: Commissioned by UCC and unveiled at UCC on 15 September 2023. UCC formally established the practice of commissioning a portrait of the University President upon completion of his/her term of office in 1949, as part of the celebrations marking the centenary of the appointment of the first President of Queen’s College Cork in 1849. The present portrait is the first in the collection done by a female artist.
More about the artist
Vera Klute is a multi-disciplinary artist, who was born in Germany in 1981 and has been based in Ireland since 2001. She attended the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT), graduating in 2006. She was elected Associate Member of the RHA in 2018.
She has had solo exhibitions at the RHA, the Butler Gallery, Limerick City Gallery (two-person show), the Molesworth Gallery, QSS Gallery and the LAB, as well as group exhibitions at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Major public commissions undertaken include a portrait bust of Irish designer Eileen Grey for the grounds of E-1027 (the designer's iconic house on the Côte d'Azur in France), as well the sculpture of Luke Kelly, now on display at Spencer Dock, on behalf of Dublin City Council.
Vera's work is represented in many public and private collections including the National Gallery of Ireland; the National Self-Portrait Collection; the Arts Council; the Office of Public Works; Trinity College Dublin; and The Butler Gallery, Kilkenny.
Klute was commissioned by the Bar of Ireland jointly with the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in 2023 to create the portrait of Frances Moran SC as part of their 'In Plain Sight' initiative. In 2017 she was commissioned by the Royal Irish Academy to create a set of four portraits for their 'Women on Walls' initiative (the subjects were Françoise Henry, Sheila Tinney, Phyllis Clinch and Eleanor Knott). Her 2014 portrait in oil of Sr Stanislaus Kennedy RSC ('Sr Stan'), social justice campaigner, was commissioned by the National Gallery of Ireland and is now in the national collection. The NGI also commissioned a sculpture of the theatre director, Garry Hynes, by Klute, which is in the National Portrait collection. In January 2019, Klute's sculpture of Luke Kelly was unveiled by President Michael D. Higgins on Sheriff Street, Dublin, having won the commission for the work by competition.
Vera has won numerous awards including the Anita Young Award (2022), the Hanley Energy Sustainability Excellence Award (2021), the Solomon Fine Art Award for Sculpture (2020), the Hennessy Portrait Prize at the National Gallery (portrait of Anne Ryder) and the Hennessy Craig Scholarship at the RHA (both 2015), the K+M Evans Award (2013) and the EVA Award at Wexford Arts Centre (2009). She has been received several Arts Council Bursary Awards. Vera appeared on RTÉ's 'The Work Presents', interviewed by John Kelly, on Thursday, 11 May 2023.
© University College Cork 2024