A Dubliner’s Collection of Asian Art

The Albert Bender Exhibition

This exhibition will run from 13 November 2008

Albert M. Bender (1866-1941) was born in Dublin, the son of Rabbi Philip Bender. By the time he was an adolescent he had emigrated to San Francisco, California where by the turn of the 20th century he was one of the most successful insurance brokers on the west coast of the United States. Although first attracted to book collecting and modern art, both of which he generously supported he also became interested in Asian art. In honour of his mother, Augusta Bender, he donated approx. 260 artefacts of mostly Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan origin to the National Museum of Ireland between 1931 and 1936. The then Director of the National Museum, archaeologist Adolf Mahr, was Albert Bender’s main point of contact throughout the donations. Although the National Museum had collected Asian applied arts from the late 19th/early 20th centuries, this was the first significant series of donations given to the National Museum during the early years of Irish Independence. This fact was acknowledged at government level by the opening of the ‘Augusta Bender Memorial Room of Far Eastern Art’ by the then President of the Executive Council, Eamonn De Valera in June 1934.

The objects collected by Bender and subsequently donated to the  NMI include a rare set of Thangkas (paintings on cotton) of the Arhats (disciples) of Buddha and four Lokapalas (Guardians) of the Four Quarters of the World from a Tibetan-Buddhist temple dating to the 18th century. Also included are textiles associated with the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), Japanese Ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), a Daoist priest’s robe from 17th/18th century China and several decorative arts objects in the areas of metalwork, ceramics and wood.

Yeats and Bender: A Time of Gifts 2 Yeatspdf.pdf (0.44 MB, Adobe PDF)