Томас МакГриви: Ирландский поэт и деятель искусства

Irish poet
the poet

Thomas MacGreevy (born Thomas McGreevy; 26 October 1893 – 16 March 1967) was a pivotal figure in the history of Irish literary modernism. A poet, he was also director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1950 to 1963 and served on the first Irish Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon).

Thomas McGreevy was born in Tarbert, County Kerry, the son of a Royal Irish Constabulary policeman and a primary school teacher. At the age of 16, he joined the British Civil Service as a boy clerk. At the outbreak of the First World War he was promoted to an intelligence post with the Admiralty. He enlisted in 1916, and saw active service at the Battle of Ypres Salient and the Somme, being wounded twice. After the war he studied at Trinity College, Dublin, in whose library his papers are now held. He then became involved in various library organisations, began publishing articles in Irish periodicals, and wrote his first poems.

In 1929 MacGreevy began working at Formes, a journal of the fine arts. He also published a translation of Paul Valéry's Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci as Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci. In the mid 1930s, he moved back to London and earned his living lecturing at the National Gallery there. From 1938 to 1940 he was the chief art critic for The Studio. He published several books on art and artists, including Jack B. Yeats: An Appreciation and an Interpretation (on Jack Butler Yeats) and Pictures in the Irish National Gallery (both 1945), and Nicolas Poussin (1960) on Nicolas Poussin. He was director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1950 to 1963. and joined the editorial board of the latter.