Sean Keating RHA

Sean Keating was born in Limerick in 1889. He studied drawing at Limerick Technical School before he was awarded a scholarship with the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin in 1911 where he studied painting under William Orpen. Orpen became an important influence on Keating who travelled to London to work in his studio in 1915. Keating’s first major work, ‘Men of the West’, was exhibited in the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1915. The artist was heavily inspired by the people and places of the West of Ireland and Aran. He stated, that to him, his paintings which featured these western themes where of the most importance.  He was president of the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1949 – 1962 and a professor of painting at the National College of Art. Keating died in December 1977 in Dublin.