and concerned with what was called "post-war British art" will remember the painting called "A Family".' Louis le Brocquy explains: 'I have always been fascinated by the horizontal monumentality of traditional Odalisque painting, the reclining woman depicted voluptuously by one Master after another throughout the history of European art - Titians' Venus of Urbino, Velázquez' Rokeby Venus turning her back on the Spanish Court, Goya's Maja clothed and unclothed, Ingres' Reclining Odalisque in her seraglio and finally the great Olympia of Édouard Manet celebrating his favourite model, Victorine Meurent. My own painting A Family was conceived in 1950 in very different circumstances in face of the atomic threat, social upheaval and refugees of World War II and its aftermath. The elements in its composition correspond in some ways to those of Olympia, if not to Manet's cool sensuality. The female figure in A Family may be seen to take on a very different significance. The man, replacing Manet's black servant with bouquet, sits alone. The bouquet is reduced to a mere wisp held by a child. The Olympian black cat in turn becomes white, ominously emerging from the sheets. This is how A Family appears to me today. Fifty years ago it was painted while contemplating a human condition stripped back to Palaeolithic circumstance under electric light bulbs.' History The painting was first exhibited in London at Gimpel Fils in June 1951, where it received considerable praise. In 1952, a group of art patrons offered to present the painting to the Hugh Lane Gallery, but the gift was rejected by the Art Advisory Committee on the grounds of "incompetence." The rejection prompted public disputes among artists and art critics which reflected divided opinions on the merits of modern art. Over time, attitudes towards the painting grew more positive. In June 1956 Louis le Brocquy represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale and A Family was awarded the Nestlé-endowed Premio Aquisitato. At the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, it was recognized for its historical impact in the exhibition Cinquante Ans d'Art Moderne ("Fifty Years of Modern Art"). In 2002, A Family entered the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland as a gift of Lochlann and Brenda Quinn. It was the first painting to ever enter the Gallery's permanent collection while its artist was still living. The curator of the gallery, Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, commented that "A Family is rightly recognized as