The Starling Lake

The 1904 exhibition was the artist's first public exhibition, held when he was 37. George Russell, together with Constance Gore Booth and her Polish husband, Casimir Dunin Mrakievicz, hired the Leinster Lecture Hall in Dublin for Dublin Horse Show week for an exhibition entitled 'Pictures of Two Countries', the two countries being Poland and Ireland. Of the 220 paintings exhibited, 63 of them were by AE, and of these he sold over half on the first day. A theosophist, his training and beliefs remained with him for the rest of his life and were often reflected in his paintings of a mystical or symbolic nature (see D. Beale, Apollo, December 2004).