Visual Art: Accessible Events at The National Gallery in February 2024

There are several fantastic accessible events coming up at the National Gallery in February 2024.

Tour of Zurich Portrait Prizes for people who have a hearing impairment or are Hard of Hearing

Thursday 1 February 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Location: Courtyard, National Gallery of Ireland

This free tour, exploring some highlights of the Gallery’s permanent collection and the Zurich Portrait Prizes, is for individuals who are hard of hearing or have hearing impairments. This tour is fully accessible to people who are hard of hearing and use a tour guide system with T-loop capabilities.

Meet your tour guide in our Courtyard, near the Merrion Square information desk. This tour takes place at 5.30pm on the first Thursday of every month.

Irish Sign Language Tour of Zurich Portrait Prizes
Thursday 8 February 6.00pm to 7.00pm

Location: Courtyard, National Gallery of Ireland

Join the Gallery’s Irish Sign Language tour guides for a look at highlights from the Gallery’s national collection and the Zurich Portrait Prizes. As the Gallery endeavours to make our activities and events accessible to the deaf community, we wish to welcome members of the ISL community to the Gallery. This tour is exclusively in Irish Sign Language and will not have any translation available.

Meet your tour guide in our Courtyard, near the Merrion Square information desk. This tour takes place at 6.00pm on the second Thursday of every month.

Audio Described Tour of Zurich Portrait Prizes
Thursday 22 February 6.00pm to 7.00pm

Location: Courtyard, National Gallery of Ireland

Join the Gallery’s highly trained tour guides for an audio described exploration of the national collection and the Zurich Portrait Prizes. Visitors will be guided through key parts of the Gallery building and focus on several highlights on display incorporating audio description and discussion. This tour is fully accessible to people who are hard of hearing and use a tour guide system with T-loop capabilities.

Meet your tour guide in our Courtyard, near the Merrion Square information desk. This tour takes place at 6.00pm on the third Thursday of every month.

Curator’s Introductory Talk: Turning Heads
Tuesday 27 February 1.00pm to 2.00pm 

Location: Zoom

Discover more about the exhibition Turning Heads with exhibition Curator Dr Lizzie Marx. This ambitious exhibition explores early modern artists’ obsession with the human face. The word ‘tronie’, no longer in common usage, literally translates as ‘face’. In art, the term referred to small and playful paintings of heads, which became very popular in the Low Countries in the early seventeenth century. Unlike portraits, these pictures were unconcerned with the identity of the sitter. Their true topic was the face, its morphology, expression, and lighting. Turning Heads traces the emergence of this art historical phenomenon in the sixteenth century and culminates with its heyday in the work of such giants as Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Johannes Vermeer.

The exhibition will feature examples of their work, and of many other celebrated Dutch and Netherlandish artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were fine exponents of the tronie and head studies. These include Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Michael Sweerts, and Adriaen van Ostade.

This free talk will take place online via Zoom. Login details will be contained in the e-mail booking receipt. The talk will be recorded and made available on the Gallery’s YouTube channel until the exhibition ends. This event will be accompanied by an Irish sign language interpreter. There will be time for questions after the talk. This exhibition is a collaboration between the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and the National Gallery of Ireland.

Read the National Gallery’s visitor guide for details of what to expect on your visit to the Gallery.