Valuable Irish art books to be shown Monday at Hornell Arts Center
From Stephen Walker, Celtic jeweler, musician, historian
Medieval monks, Victorian scholars and old hippies all inform the continuing traditions of Celtic arts and culture.
On Monday March 10, at the Hornell Arts Center, local Celtic jeweler Stephen Walker will join traditional musician Pat Kane from 6 to 8 PM. Pat Kane will be leading a program of music and Celtic dancing. Walker will be exhibiting some rarely seen treasures from his collection of Celtic art. The event is free to the public.
A recently acquired facsimile copy of the 8th Century Book of Kells will be at the center of Walker’s show-and-tell presentation. The original Book of Kells is regarded as one of the most splendid, complicated and beautiful manuscripts of medieval Europe. It has been in the library of Trinity College Dublin since 1653. The Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College Dublin is a major Irish tourist attraction. It has annually astonished over half a million visitors.
Named for the monastery of Kells in County Meath, Ireland, the origin of this masterpiece has been the subject of heated debates. The many highly illustrated pages as well as the decorative script are colorful and imaginative, executed with such skill and beauty that it has been described as the work of angels. This facsimile edition reproduces every page in high resolution, including the irregular shapes of the pages and holes in the vellum.
“This Book of Kells facsimile was acquired in the 1990s by my friend and fellow Celtic Jeweler, the late John Urban.” Says Walker, “ John paid $14,000 for it as an investment. I was very touched when John gifted me this precious book several months before his death in 2023.”
Urban, who was based in Quebec, was a very successful early pioneer of the Renaissance of Celtic design. Urban made arrangement to pass on all his designs, molds and design copyrights to Walker when he knew he was terminally ill.
“John was something of an old hippie.” Walker says of his friend, “His art developed in Montreal in the 1960s. He was an avid collector of butterflies, ancient coins, underground comics, Celtic art and stories.”
Another artifact that Walker will be displaying and discussing on Monday night is a beautiful art book published in 1864, titled The Cromlech on Howth. This book contains illuminations faithfully copied from the Book of Kells by the Irish artist and scholar Margaret Stokes. Walker’s analysis of this book was the subject of a lecture he gave in Ireland at Downpatrick at the International Day of Celtic Art Conference in 2023.
This event is part of Irish Cultural week, sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Hornell. Pat Kane and his band West o’ Clare will be performing again on Saturday from 1:30 to 3:30 at the Hornell Arts Center after the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. The parade on Main Street Hornell begins at 11 AM. For more information is available on the AOH of Hornell Facebook page or by calling Walker Metalsmiths at 607-478-8567.
