Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mulvany, Thomas James
MULVANY, THOMAS JAMES (d. 1845?), painter and keeper of the Royal Hibernian Academy, first appears as an exhibitor with the Dublin Society of Artists at the rooms of the Dublin Society in Hawkins Street, Dublin, in May 1809. When the Dublin Society in 1819 disposed of their premises and the artists were without a place of exhibition, Mulvany, with his brother, John George Mulvany, who was also a painter, was one of the most strenuous advocates for the grant of a charter of incorporation to the artists of Ireland. When at length this charter was obtained in 1823 and the Royal Hibernian Academy founded under the presidency of Francis Johnston [q. v.], Mulvany and his brother were two of the first fourteen academicians elected. He subsequently became keeper in 1841. During the last years of his life Mulvany was employed in editing 'The Life of James Gandon' [q. v.], which he did not, however, live to complete, as he died about 1845, while the book was not published until 1846. His son, George F. Mulvany (1809–1869), also practised as a painter. He succeeded his father as keeper of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and occasionally sent pictures to the Royal Academy in London. In 1854 he was elected the first director of the newly founded National Gallery of Ireland, and held the post until his death in Dublin on 6 Feb. 1869.
[Sarsfield Taylor's Fine Arts of Great Britain and Ireland; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]