Saintfield exhibition salutes local artist

Saintfield exhibition salutes local artist

16 September 2015

AN exhibition of artwork by the free-spirited and talented Kathleen I Mackie is on display in Saintfield.

Born in 1899, Kathleen Metcalfe grew up in Knock on the outskirts of Belfast, married Jack Mackie of prominent Belfast industrialists James Mackie & Sons, and later lived at Ringdufferin on the shores of Strangford Lough.

Her son, Paddy, one of the founders of Castle Espie, is also well-known locally.

An unassuming artist, the mother of three was perhaps better known within her family as somewhat of a dare-devil.

A pioneering glider pilot, she set up the Ulster Gliding Club and was a friend of aviator Amy Johnston. She was also an early skier, an angler and known to be something of a crack shot.

But before she married, a career in art had been considered. Kathleen was educated at Richmond Lodge and Alexandra College, Dublin, where her talent was recognised by Richard Orpen and Sarah Purser. She was also chosen to design posters which were displayed at  Amiens Street, now Connolly Station, as part of the fundraising 1914-18 war effort.

She studied at the Belfast School of Art, became a member of JW Carey’s 1910 Sketching Club and in 1921 submitted works for the Royal Dublin Society’s Taylor Art Awards, winning a prize which led to her admission to the Royal Academy Schools in London.

In 1922 she again submitted her work and won both the prestigious Taylor Award and later a British Institution scholarship. Kathleen exhibited regularly from 1920 until 1929 at the Belfast Art Society, now the Royal Ulster Academy. Her oil painting entitled ‘The Market’ was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1926.

Kathleen would also go on to exhibit at the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Watercolour Society of Ireland. 

Her duties as the wife of a senior industrialist and mother of three sons gradually turned her into a ‘holiday painter’, notably of landscapes and life in Donegal. In 1936 she was elected an associate of the Royal Ulster Academy and to mark the occasion presented her salon picture ‘The Market’ to the academy for its diploma collection. In 1983 son Paddy came across a treasure trove of his mother’s work in a trip to an apple loft at the family home at Ringdufferin.

It made a major impact. He decided to bring a greater public focus to his mother’s work by putting together a coffee table-style book along with journalist Eamonn Mallie as well a retrospective exhibition of her work.

It was not until she was 86 that Kathleen was given her first one-woman show in 1985 at the Castle Espie Gallery, now the home of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. 

In 1987 the National Gallery of Ireland and the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin included her diploma picture in their joint exhibition, ‘Irish Women Artists,’ and in 1996 the Ulster Museum’s retrospective exhibition celebrated this talented artist’s long life which began and ended under the spotlight of her creative ability.

A further exhibition and sale of her paintings is being launched on Thursday, September 24 and will run for a further four weeks at Antiques at the Stile & The Stile Gallery at Main Street, Saintfield.

The exhibition can be viewed at www.antiquesatthestile.com.