Artist Veronica Bolay dies at 78

SAD PASSING Veronica Bolay at the Custom House Studios and Gallery, Westport, in September 2017. Pic: Conor McKeown

Acclaimed artist Veronica Bolay, a member of AosdΡna and the Royal Hibernian Academy, died this morning in Dublin at the age of 78. She was also a member of the Board of Directors at The Linenhall Arts Centre in Castlebar.
Bolay was born in during World War II in Hamburg, Germany, in 1941. She moved to Ireland in 1971 and resided in Dublin and Mayo, where she formed close ties to Westport and Clare Island. Much of her work was inspired by the Irish landscape, and she was perhaps best known for her atmospheric work in pastels and oils, though she also produced etchings and pen-and-ink works, as well as some figurative art.
Her work formed part of a pioneering 1978 exhibition of women artists held in the Project gallery in Dublin, where she exhibited with, among others, Camille Souter and the late Mary Farl Powers.
Between 1974 and 2013 she has had more than 20 solo shows all over Ireland and won numerous awards, including the Sean Keating Medal and the Louis Walsh Award. She was also invited to take up a residency at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris.
In 2017, as part of Westport Arts Festival, the Custom House Studios and Gallery in Westport carried a solo exhibition of her work entitled ‘Pausing at a Crossroad’. Her artwork also featured in the RHA’s Annual Exhibition that year.
Bolay’s work forms part of the collections of AIB, ESB, Bank of Ireland, AXA, Dublin City University, National Self-Portrait Collection, University of Limerick, NUI Maynooth, Boyle Civic Collection, Irish Life, Department of the Marine, Mayo County Council, Intel, and Arthur Anderson & Co.
Poet Paul Durcan wrote two poems about her paintings, ‘The Hay Carrier’ and ‘Island Musician Going Home’.
She was married to the actor, Sunday Miscellany writer and translator, the late Peter Jankowsky, and she is survived by her son, Aengus; granddaughter, Mila; daughter-in-law, Irina; brother-in-law, Bernd; family and friends. Her funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, January 7, at 10am in the Church of St Laurence O’Toole, Kilmacud, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.