Phoebe Donovan

Phoebe Donovan (1902 – May 1998) was an Irish flower, landscape and portrait artist.

Biography Phoebe Donovan was born in Wexford in 1902. She was educated privately before being sent to a French school in Wexford. Donovan began painting as part of a local art group. She then traveled to Rome and London. Donovan grew up on a farm and raised animals and sold eggs to gather the money needed to attend art college. Eventually Donovan attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1927 and also the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools on St Stephen's Green. Seán Keating taught her portraiture.

Her first exhibition was with the RHA in 1931. She exhibited again in 1933 with the Water Colour Society of Ireland. In 1948 she was elected a member and served on the committee from 1954 to 1987. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Donovan was a member of the Society of Dublin Painters.

She died in her childhood home, Ballymore, County Wexford, in May 1998.

Solo exhibitions

Old Stables Gallery, Ballymore, Camolin, Permanent Display Stephen O'Mara Gallery, Dún Laoghaire, 1990 Corish Picture Gallery, Wexford, 1958, 1965, 1970 Ritchie Hendricks Gallery, Dublin, 1956 Charles Pilkington Showrooms, Dawson Street, Dublin, 1955 Dublin Painters Gallery, 1951 The Country Shop Dublin, 1950

Group exhibitions Dún Laoghaire Arts Week, 1988 Setanta Gallery, Dublin, 1977 Graphic Studio retrospective Exhibition, 1976 Dalkey Community Council, 1976 & 1987 Municipal Gallery, Dublin, 1964 Painters Group, 1961 & 1966 Kilkenny Arts Society, 1961 Munster Fine Art club, Cork, 1946 Pastel Society, London, 1936 Dublin Sketching Club, 1930 Irish Watercolour Society, 1933 – 1997