Bernard Canavan – CV/Biography
EDUCATION
1962 – 1963 Attended short course at Oxford College of Art to study graphics, photography, lithography and typography.
Sept 1965 Won Lowes-Dickenson medal and Victorian travelling scholarship to Europe for painting, Working Men’s’ College
1971 – 1973 State Mature Scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford. Qualification: Oxford Diploma in Social Studies
1973 – 1976 Worcester College, Oxford. Qualification: BA hons. Politics, Philosophy and Economics
PUBLICATIONS
1978 – 1979 Wrote and illustrated ‘Economists for Beginners’ for ‘Writers and Readers’ Publishers. Translated into German, Portuguese, French and Japanese and Urdu
Columnist for ‘Ri Ra’, ‘The Irish World’ and ‘Voice of the Unions’.
Essays including ‘Storytellers and Writers; Irish identity in emigrant labourers’ autobiographies 1870 – 1970′ in Patrick O’Sullivan’s ‘The Creative Migrant’ (Leicester University Press 1994) and ‘Losing the Emigrant in the Diaspora’ 2007 for Cricklewood Homeless Concern
1979 – 1980 Illustrated Eia Ansen’s ‘Psychiatry for Beginners’
AWARDS
1965 Lowes Dickenson Art Scholarship
2008 Irish Post Art Award
COLLECTIONS
Portrait of Gerry O’Neill, London playwright at Limerick University
Drawings at Ruskin College Oxford
‘Vertigo’ painting at Longford County Council, Libraries Department.
Portrait of Lennox Robinson for the newly re-named Robinson Room in Douglas Library, Cork opened by Eogan Harris
2007 Paintings appeared in the Tom Collins film ‘Kings’ (2007)
2009 Paintings the subject of a short independent film documentary ‘Half Lives’ by Anna Bowman which was premiered at the Tricycle Theatre Kilburn. http://cotleighstudios.co.uk/halflives.html
2009 Canavan featured on a BBC Radio Northern Ireland programmer entitled ‘Camden Town’.
2009 ‘London Irish Painting’ booklet sponsored by Paddy Cowan of the Irish World newspaper
2010 Appearance in Irish and British television documentaries, most recently ‘The Forgotten Irish’ broadcast on TV3.
Various Irish Times articles on exhibitions
Other
1980 – 1990 Established Island History Trust, recording the lives of people on the Isle of Dogs.
April 1980 Set up the first ‘Irish in Britain’ weekend history Conference at the Metropolitan University, London.
EXHIBITIONS
May 2003 ‘The Backward Glance’
An exhibition of oil paintings and watercolours at Hammersmith Irish Centre, London
November 2004 ‘Nurses and Navvies: Remembering the 60s London Irish’
An exhibition of oil paintings and watercolours at Hammersmith Irish Centre devoted to the theme of Irish post-WWII emigration to Britain
March 2006 ‘Over the Water’
An exhibition of paintings at The Gallery, Willesden Library Centre London on life in Ireland and London in the 1950s and 60s.
March 2007 ‘From a Receding Childhood’
An exhibition of paintings at Longford Library Gallery on Irish life and emigration.
June 2007 ‘Ireland and the Irish’
Exhibition of paintings on Irish identity at the Excel Centre, Tipperary Town
October 2007 ‘Ireland and the Irish’
An exhibition of paintings on Irish identity at Cork City Library
November 2007 ‘The Streets of London’
Exhibition of paintings at the Hammersmith Irish Centre Gallery, London
February 2008 ‘Encountering the Future’
Exhibition of paintings on Irish and London- Irish life at the Dublin City Library and Archives, Pearse Street Dublin. Exhibition was opened by writer Shane Connaughton
March 2008 Exhibition of paintings on the theme of Irish Identity at the Greater London Authority City Hall, London
November 2008 The Faithful Departed
Exhibition of paintings at the Hammersmith Irish Centre Gallery, London
September 2009 ‘Changing Times’
An exhibition of paintings at Dublin City Library and Archive on the theme of Irish identity before and during the Celtic Tiger in Britain and in Ireland
March 2010 Exhibition of paintings at the Leeds Irish History Month at the Seven Gallery, Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton, Leeds
July 2010 Exhibition of paintings at the 13th annual Lough Ree Environmental Summer School and Arts Festival Lanesboro Festival, Co Roscommon opened by Brian Keenan
March 2011 Exhibition of paintings at the Irish Club, Tudor Street, London
May 2011 Exhibition of paintings at Laois Bealtaine Festival at Áras an Chontae Portlaoise opened by artist Brendon Deacy
July 2011 ‘Pictures of Vanishing Ireland’ – Reflections on the themes of emigration, secularization & modernity over the past half century.
August 2012 ‘Exile World’ – an exhibition of paintings at Kennys Gallery, Galway with video of opening speech by the historian, Gearoid O Tautaigh (available on Youtube
July 2013 The Gathering Longford and Edgeworthstown exhibitions
March 2014 ‘The Backward Glance’ – an exhibition of new paintings at the 12 Star Gallery, Westminster curated by Barbara Stanley
