Douglas Hyde Gallery
The Douglas Hyde Gallery is a publicly funded contemporary art gallery located in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. It is named for Douglas Hyde, a graduate of Trinity College and the first president of Ireland.
The Gallery was co-founded by the Arts Council and Trinity College Dublin. It opened to the public in March 1978 as the first publicly-funded gallery dedicated to contemporary art and the first university gallery in Ireland. When the Gallery opened in 1978, it was for a number of years Ireland's only public gallery of contemporary art. In 2017 Georgina Jackson was appointed director, taking over from John Hutchinson who was director for 25 years.
The Douglas Hyde Gallery consists of two exhibition spaces that are used to show concurrent exhibitions, which often have a relating theme or tone.
Publications
The Douglas Hyde Gallery produces publications for many of its exhibitions. These books can take the form of exhibition catalogues, artists’ books or curated projects and, while extremely different in content, they all share a similar exterior presentation. Since 2002, the Gallery has published over forty books in this small, hardback format.The Leaves & Papers series of books and leaflets is an ongoing project which allows The Douglas Hyde Gallery to produce and publish ideas, images and texts relating to a specific theme or concept which does not always relate directly to the Gallery's programme.
Another ongoing series of books documents the Galley's programme while also highlighting some of the central principles of the Gallery and its exhibitions. The books explore ideas about visual culture, identity, and spirituality through carefully selected texts and imagery. These books include: the bread and butter stone, 1997; Patmos, 1999; 33 Happy Moments, 2003; Alabama Chrome, 2007; The Bridge, 2008; Questions of Travel, 2009; Saunter, 2010.