MAY 24, 2024: The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts is delighted to announce that the RHA Gold Medal for 2025 has been awarded to Dr. Yvonne Scott.
Since 1994, the RHA has awarded the Gold Medal annually to persons who have made significant contributions to the Academy and to the arts in Ireland. At a Prize Giving ceremony held in the main gallery of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts on Saturday, 24 May, Dr. Abigail O’Brien RHA President stated:
"The RHA is delighted to award the RHA Gold Medal for 2025 to Dr Yvonne Scott."
Yvonne is a Fellow emeritus at the University of Dublin and of Trinity College Dublin, where she is Associate Professor in the History of Art Department. She was founding Director of Triarc (Trinity Irish Art Research Centre) established in 2003. She has represented Ireland as a Member of CIHA (Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art), which is the oldest international organisation of art history in the world, and she has served on Boards of many cultural institutions, including the Douglas Hyde Gallery.
While all of this amounts to an overwhelming CV one of her most important activities and achievements lies, of course, in her teaching. Through her teaching, Yvonne has brought her love of Modern and contemporary art to hundreds of art history students throughout Ireland. Through her publications on Irish art and artists, she has shone a light and has made Irish art and Irish artists more visible, not just in Ireland, but also on the international stage. Her enthusiasm and love of art have brought her to the far corners of Ireland, where she has lectured, conducted interviews with artists and written essays to accompany exhibitions and gallery publications.
One of her recent publications, Landscape and Environment in Contemporary Irish Art, published in 2023, explores the Irish landscape and environment through the eyes of the artists working in, and concerned with, this environment on its many levels.
This is not only a major publication on Irish landscape-related art, it is also, In many ways, an iconic Yvonne Scott book, in that she chooses to approach and research the Irish landscape and environment through the perception and sensibilities of more than a hundred artists living and working in Ireland. She shows us how artists respond to issues of landscape, space, place, environment and nature. By so doing, not only does she make this landscape, with its layered complexities, visible, but she also supports and draws attention to the artists working in and concerned with this wonderful and sometimes vulnerable environment.
It is therefore, our great honour to present Dr Yvonne Scott with the 2025 Gold Medal for service to Irish art.”
Previous recipients of this prestigious award include philanthropists Sir Alfred Beit, Lewis and Loretta Glucksman, Arts activist Anthony Cronin, and actor Gabriel Byrne.
RHA Gold Medal
The RHA has awarded a Gold Medal, annually, since 1994 to persons who have made significant contributions to the Academy in particular and to the arts in Ireland in general. A citation is given by either the President or a guest and the medal, which features a profile relief of the Academy’s second President Francis Johnston, is given to the recipient.
Previous recipients include; Sir Alfred Beit, Philanthropist, Lewis and Loretta Glucksman, Philanthropists, Anthony Cronin, Poet, Arts activist & Critic, Gabriel Byrne, Actor, Tony Kilduff, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Grafton Architects & Jacquie Moore, OPW. Full list available.
Photography Paul Sherwood.
