Glebe House and Gallery

Sitting just outside the town of Letterkenny, the Regency-style Glebe House was the home and studio of the painter Derek Hill for some thirty years. Hill had trained in Germany and Moscow, and had been for a time a pupil of Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), but became known in Britain primarily as a portrait painter, his sitters including John Betjeman and Kenneth Clarke. In 1954, he bought this old rectory and its surrounding land in Donegal, and he devoted many of his later years to painting the extensive landscapes surrounding him, as well as shaping the interior and garden design of his new home. He remained in Ireland for the rest of his life, and was made an honorary Irish citizen in 1999.

Hill bequeathed his house and collection to the nation in the early 1980s, including some 300 artworks by mostly twentieth-century artists, including Picasso and Kokoshka. Today, visitors to the modern Gallery can see these works displayed in a formal gallery setting, but can also visit Hill's former home, which is displayed much as he left it, decorated with William Morris and Japanese textiles.