10 paintings you wish you'd bought at the 193rd RHA Annual show

The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts has held an annual exhibition, displaying hundreds of artworks, every year, bar four since 1826.

Traditionally a summer show, for collectors new and seasoned it offers the largest selection of Irish art to be found in one place for sale, on view for free and open to the public for ten weeks. With artworks ranging from €65 to €60,000 this year, it really is a show for every pocket. Last year's exhibition saw more than €550,000 of art sold.

There are currently 45 RHAs (academy members) and nine ARHAs (associate members). Members and invited artists automatically have their work included, but any artist working in paint, drawing, print, sculpture, photography or architecture can submit their work for rejection or acceptance by the 6-person selection committee through the Open Submission process. Of the more than 560 artworks now on display in the building 60% are Open Submission works, selected from the 2,681 emerging and established artists who entered their art.

Every year without fail, the exhibition’s best value works are snapped up first.

Here’s our selection of ten paintings you might wish you’d been quick, or cash-rich, enough to buy for yourself, along with a few suggestions for other works to keep an eye on.

This year’s show is notable for an increase in large-scale paintings, although the ever-popular wall of salon-hung small works is still attracting eyes and buyers, along with a huge selection of painted works in a wide variety of styles scattered throughout the RHA’s six main gallery spaces.

1. Catherine Barron, Night Studio, €3,750

Framed in striking neon yellow acrylic, a standout work from an artist whose recent Molesworth gallery show explored perceptions of colour.

2. Martin Gale RHA, Lighting Up, €3,500

Works by Gale always sell fast at the RHA Annual exhibition. One of two circus tent paintings the RHA member exhibited this year, Lighting Up is as atmospheric as it is exquisitely made.

3. Zsolt Basti, Model Making, €750

Shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize at the National Gallery of Ireland in 2022, this 2018 IADT Dun Laoghaire graduate is one to watch.

4. Ann Quinn ARHA, The Successor, €1,000

A really striking, evocative small painting by this Donegal-born painter of mostly rural and farm life.

5. Mick O'Dea PPRHA, Maud, €7,500

One of two imposing and impressive portraits of the iconic Republican revolutionary and suffragette Maud Gonne, by a former president of the RHA (2014-2018).

6. Stephanie Deady, Measure for Measure No.10, €1,800

A beautiful and deceptively simple abstraction in oil on birch plywood, which has been shortlisted for the Hennessy Craig / Homan Potter Award at this year's show.

7. Noelle Brennan, Courtown Nest, €145

Proof that if you are quick, you can always snap up a small, very good value painting at the RHA Annual. Brennan's energetic acrylic-painted nest fills a neat square measuring just 25 x 25 cm.

8. Charles Tyrrell, ARHA CG5.23, €19,000

If you like your abstraction large and greyscale than this is for you. The West Cork based artist sold both works, which are hanging as a complementary pair in the large upstairs gallery at the RHA.

9. Ciara Roche, Night Call, €1,900

A painter of exquisitely measured small works, Roche is a recipient of the 2022 Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Award. This deep blue night painting has a distinct, enticing atmosphere of its own.

10. Colin Martin RHA, Glastonbury, €20,000

This is one of the first paintings you will see in the lobby of the building on Ely Place. You'd have needed deep pockets, but it was already sold when the doors opened to the public.