words edel cassidy
Few artists have captured the full arc of a life with the honesty, vitality and imagination of Pauline Bewick. The Seven Ages collection, now permanently on display in Killorglin, County Kerry is an extraordinary body of work that charts seven decades in the life of one of Ireland’s most unique and prolific artists. The exhibition opened on the week that she would have celebrated her ninetieth birthday.
Born in Northumbria in 1935, Bewick moved with her mother to Ireland as a child, later settling in Kerry, where the landscape and community would become her enduring source of inspiration. She studied at the National College of Art in Dublin, where she met her lifelong partner Pat Melia, then a young medical student. She built a career that spanned continents and generations. Her style defied easy classification – playful, sensuous and brimming with colour, often blurring the boundaries between the real and the imagined.
In 2005, on turning seventy, Bewick took the unusual step of donating a vast master collection of her work to the Irish State. The donation, eventually comprising some 500 works, became the foundation of the Seven Ages, a cultural treasure that remains unique in its scope and depth. Few artists have produced a series that documents with such intimacy the stages of an artist’s life, from childhood through youth, motherhood, maturity and into old age.
The works include tapestries, watercolours, sketches, wall hangings and mixed-media pieces, tracing not only the evolution of the artist but also the shifting cultural and social landscape of modern Ireland. They are filled with Bewick’s characteristic warmth and wit, but also with ambiguity and a refusal to conform.
At a 1987 exhibition at the Odette Gilbert Gallery in London, launched by Professor Anthony Clare, he remarked that Pauline Bewick was ‘unclassifiable’ … ‘the energy, the extraordinary power of these paintings, the warmth indeed of her portrayal of women, the interesting ambiguity of her portrayal of men … This has in the end created an artist and an individual who is very difficult to classify.’
Although her career took her to many corners of the world, Kerry remained her creative touchstone. Alan Hayes, who created interpretive panels to accompany the collection, described her as ‘an international artist, with a universal vision, whose artistic life began and ended in County Kerry’. That sense of rootedness, combined with her universal outlook, shaped an artistic vision both deeply personal and universally resonant.
Throughout her life, Pauline often spoke of the importance of nurturing creativity in children, recalling how her own mother encouraged her earliest drawings with unqualified praise. That early validation, she believed, gave her the confidence to pursue art without fear or hesitation. Pauline’s daughters, Poppy and Holly, along with extended family, attended the exhibition opening. Her granddaughter, Chiara Bellucci, addressed the guests, recalling her grandmother as a joyful presence and gifted storyteller whose imagination brought laughter and wonder to family life.
In later life, Bewick continued to create despite significant health challenges. After suffering a stroke in 2012, she turned her wit and resilience into humorous poetry, confronting frailty with the same honesty and imagination that characterised her paintings. She passed away in 2022 at the age of 87, leaving behind not just an immense body of work but also an enduring influence on Irish cultural life.
Then President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins captured her spirit in words that could serve as a guide to experiencing the Seven Ages: ‘Her work is expression in its truest form, unburdened by purpose or expectation, pulling us away from the everyday and towards alternate existences.’
The Seven Ages collection remains a testament to Pauline Bewick’s generosity, vision and fearless originality. More than an exhibition, it is an intimate journey through the seven stages of life, seen through the eyes of a woman who never stopped observing, questioning and celebrating the world around her.
- ‘Pauline Bewick: The seven ages of a life in art’ is published in Anthology Volume 24. Read more features from this volume or buy it now.
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