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Belfast born, Noreen Rice attended the Methodist College, 1947-50 and won two first prizes in art. Her
piano teacher Tom Davidson introduced her to Gerard Dillon and George Campbell who taught her in
the early 1950s and became closely associated with the two artists till their deaths in 1971 and 1979.
She visited Gerard Dillon before traveling to Hong Kong in 1954 where she remained till 1957 and had
a solo show in 1956 with the British Council. From 1958 to 1967, she lived in London and rented a flat
in Gerard Dillon’s sister Mollie’s house for some years in Abbey Road with her brother Hal. She worked
nights at the BBC as P.A in News and Current Affairs which allowed her day -time hours to paint.While
she lived at Abbey Road, she also met many artists who visited or stayed in the house.This included
writers, Gerard Keenan, Aidan Higgins and Arthur Armstrong.The 1950s prompted experiment with
materials and continued encouragement and advice from Gerard Dillon.
From 1958, Rice became a prolific exhibitor, showing at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art and in 1961
with the NewVision Centre, London. From 1962 she exhibited with an Oireachtas and from 1965
with the RHA in Dublin. She exhibited solo and group exhibitions with the David Hendriks Gallery
from 1959 and the Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast in 1971. Other solo exhibitions included several with
The Otter and The Cavehill Galleries from 1988 in Belfast.
From 1967 to 1971, Rice lived in Paris and married French artist Achille Kern. She took up
Lithography and studied etching in Geneva under a bursary from the Swiss Arts Council. She lived in
London from 1971 to 1973, Ireland from 1973 to 1990 returning to London again untill 1999 before
shefinally settled in Co. Monaghan.
Rice’s work is in the National Self-Portrait Collection, Limerick; Northern Ireland Arts Council; Arts
Council of the Republic of Ireland; Ulster Museum, Belfast; and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, County
Monaghan, where she held residencies from 1985.
Fig. 43. Noreen Rice
