It is a great pleasure to open the ‘ Helnwein in Tipperary’ exhibition here in the South Tipperary Arts Centre, which it has been recently agreed, will play a leading and co-ordinating role for the arts in South Tipperary.I thank the Director, Brendan Maher, for his invitation this evening, and congratulate him on his initiative.

These memorable and even awe-inspiring paintings, which I first had an opportunity of viewing in the artist’s Kilsheelin house at Gurteen-Le-Poer, are based on a style known as photo-realism, but with influences going back to the Romantic German artist Caspar-David Friedrich. A number of examples of his work can be seen in the current exhibition of German Romantic paintings in the National Gallery in Dublin, which I can strongly recommend.

We sometimes think of our mountains as fairly modest compared with, for example, the Alps. However, the mountains that surround us in Tipperary, which once impressed Elizabethan poet and Munster colonist, Edmund Spenser, are more intimate and accessible, and many of us would have had much pleasure in walking some of them. So we know them from close up and from afar. I have with Gottfried’s permission, used one of his paintings, Irish Landscape V, to make a personal card.

Austria has been one of the main hubs of European culture, especially in music and art. The artists are not always conventional or conformist. Like the recent prizewinner for literature, Elfriede Jelinek, some of Helnwein’s work, which takes an uncomfortable look at Austria’s past and the unhealthily close relationship between Church and Sate in the Nazi era, has caused controversy.

I think we should be in no doubt that we are in the presence of the work of an artist of exceptional stature, who is greatly in demand, both for different commissions, but also for set designs for stage and film.

Exhibitions of his work have been shown all over the world. He is based in Ireland and in Los Angeles, retaining close contact of course with his Austrian homeland and the German-speaking world. He was recently granted Irish citizenship.

I regard it as entirely beneficial that foreign artists and writers settle in Ireland, while our own are encouraged to stay. Ireland benefits by being reflected in some of their work. I see no sense in changing the laws that have been very successful since being introduced by Charles Haughey as Minister for Finance in 1969.

The arts have fared well in the recent Book of Estimates, with a 16% increase in direct funding and lottery based grants to the Arts Council, to total €61 million in 2005. It reflects much credit on Minister John O’Donoghue, T.D., who has been an effective Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism.

I would encourage as many people as possible to visit this very unique and interesting exhibition and have much pleasure in declaring it open.

Senator Martin ManserghClonmel, Tipperary, 2004