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An Opening Celebration for Literary Lives: Portraits from the Crawford Art Gallery and Abbey Theatre, Ireland Over the last several centuries, a number of Irish artists have produced compelling portraits of Irish writers in painting, sculpture, and photography. Many of these portraits were either commissioned or purchased by various Irish national collections. This exhibition comprises more than fifty of the finest examples from two of the most significant of these collections: the Crawford Gallery in Cork and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Literary Lives combines visual portraiture with a wide range of rare books, manuscripts, letters, illustrations, and objects selected from Boston College’s Burns Library to explore questions about the literary life, both personal and professional, and reveal how different materials offer windows onto various aspects that life. Organized by the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, and the McMullen Museum, in collaboration with the Irish Studies Faculty and the Burns Library at Boston College, Literary Lives has been co-curated by Peter Murray, Anne Boddaert, Marjorie Howes, Diana Larsen, and Robert Savage. It is underwritten by Culture Ireland, Boston College, and the Patrons of the McMullen Museum.