Kilkenny Design Workshops:
A 60th Anniversary Celebration

Butler Gallery is very pleased to honour the 60^th Anniversary of the Kilkenny Design Workshops with a special display of works by artists long associated with KDW. They include works by Oisin Kelly, Sonja Landweer, Louis le Brocquy and Patrick Scott, all artists who are featured in the Butler Gallery Permanent Collection.

The opening of the Kilkenny Design Workshops (KDW) in 1965, established Kilkenny as the national home of design excellence in Ireland and over its tenure (1965-1988) played a significant role in shaping both our cultural heritage and identity. KDW was established to improve the standard of design in all Irish manufactured products to enable them to compete on a world market. It was the first government sponsored design agency in the world and was interventionist in aligning craft production with industrial manufacturing. KDW comprised a number of workshops across ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, and graphics and, as the project matured, industrial design that was clearly defined as design linked to engineering. Housed in the former stables of Kilkenny Castle, KDW became Ireland’s centre of design excellence and advocacy. On this important anniversary, Butler Gallery is proud to showcase some of the artists with strong ties to KDW from its inception.

Oisin Kelly (1915-1981) began an artist-in-residency with KDW in 1964 that lasted for nearly two decades. Whilst there he designed textiles as well as pottery and metalwork. Kelly was vocal about his dislike of the differentiation between functional art and fine art work: ‘I used the word ‘artist‚’ but craftsman or technician would have served equally well.’* Kelly worked with a range of materials but is best known for his public sculptures in bronze, notably ‘the Children of Lir’ for Ireland’s National Garden of Rememberance and ‘James Larkin’ in O’Connell Street in Dublin’s city centre.
* ‘Workmanship‚’, Foreword to a travelling exhibition, 1977.

Sonja Landweer (1933-2019) was a Dutch multi-disciplinary artist who was invited to KDW by William Walsh to set up a ceramic design studio. Landweer specialised in glaze and prototyping development. Her innovative practice in jewellery, body sculpture, bronze and ceramics evolved from a close relationship with the natural world; her forms, laden with intensity and fragility, are evocative of subtle balances found in nature. Landweer was a pivotal member of a group of international designers that revitalised craft and design in Ireland. This group included the renowned German master goldsmith and jewellery designer Rudolf Heltzel (1940-2020). Heltzel was master of the precious and other metals workshop which trained apprentices, many of whom went on to establish their own workshops.

Louis le Brocquy (1916-2012) was invited to join the first board of Directors of KDW. He designed the iconic KK logo which was applied to all KDW designs and by manufacturers on products designed for them by KDW. Every product had to be approved by the Standards Advisory Panel, which included Patrick Scott. Louis le Brocquy is considered one of Ireland’s foremost painters both nationally and internationally.

Patrick Scott (1921-2014) was also invited to serve on the first board of Directors of KDW. Scott worked with KDW’s textile printing section and advised the KDW designers across all disciplines. Scott is recognised as one of the first exponents of pure abstraction in Irish art and is best known for his exquisitely simple abstracts in gold and white on unprimed canvas and his series of highly coloured tapestries. He is also highly respected as a significant contributor to the development of modernist design in Ireland.