One of sixteen children, Henry McGrane became a fine-art painter of various subject but is best known for his landscapes. He was brought up on a farm outside Navan in County Meath, Ireland. His early interest in sketching and painting led him to study fine art at Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design in Dublin, before joining Don Bluth Animation Studios in 1990, as a background artist. It was here in the animation* industry, that McGrane developed his confidence in the use of colour and tone, as well as drawing and composition.

In 1995, after four years in Dublin, McGrane moved to the United States to produce backgrounds on three full-length feature films for 20th Century Fox. He took advantage of his stay to study oil painting under Joshua Fallik and portraiture under Diane Leonard.

In 2000, he left America to spend time in Norway before returning to Ireland where he began showing his work. In addition to solo exhibitions at Blue Leaf Gallery and The Art and Print Gallery, Meath, he has shown regularly in numerous select group exhibitions at Combridge Fine Arts and Molesworth Gallery (Dublin), Killarney Art Gallery, Lee Gallery (Cork) and Cherry Lane Gallery (Wicklow). His paintings were shown at the Royal Hibernian Academy* Exhibition in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Now a full-time painter, and a founder-member of Oil Painters of Ireland, McGrane is based in County Meath, although he travels regularly in search of new ideas, to places in Europe such as Venice, Cornwall, and especially Andalucia - where he has a small studio.

Source:
Online Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/contemporary-artists/henry-mcgrane.htm

* For more in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx