Charles Haslewood Shannon

Charles Shannon was born in 1863, in Lincolnshire, the son of a Rector. It was as a young student at the City and Guilds Art School in London that he was to meet his lifelong partner Charles de Sousy Ricketts. Both became inseparable, and while initially studying printmaking at the art college a lifetime of fruitful and diverse artistic collaboration from painting to publishing to collecting followed. Shannon especially admired Venetian painting and his work became imbued with classically inspired figures. In addition to the lithograph The Rebirth of the Arts, Shannon is represented in this Gallery’s collection by the paintings A Bunch of Grapes, The Lady with the Green Fan (Portrait of Mrs Hacon) and a portrait of Robert Gregory, a cousin of Hugh Lane’s and the son of Augusta, Lady Gregory. When the Gallery opened in 1908, Charles Shannon was included by Hugh Lane in the category of Irish artists by birth or descent, as Shannon’s grandparents were Irish.

Jessica O'Donnell 2014