The event coincides with the publication of a study on Thomas Roberts entitled Thomas Roberts: Landscape and Patronage in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, which was co written by William Laffan and Brendan Rooney curator of the Exhibition.
The Epoch Times caught up with Mr Laffan and Mr Rooney prior to the opening of the exhibition.
The aforementioned book took three years to complete and was undertaken because both writers felt that Thomas Roberts deserved better treatment as a European painter of great significance. "We hope with the exhibition he will now be given his place in Irish and European landscape painting."
Mr Laffan encouraged the public to come and see the exhibition, "I think they are fantastic pictures of all over the country … there are all kinds of landscapes for people to enjoy and it's free."
"Of all Irish artists we think Thomas Roberts is very special," said Mr Laffan who is an art historian from Dublin, currently based in London.
The organisers of the current exhibition have done a fabulous job in amassing fifty of Thomas Roberts works, considering that that last time they had an exhibition of his works was back in 1978 when the Gallery had sixteen paintings on display.
"He was an artist of European significance, I think the pictures themselves now that we have put them all together do support that view," said Mr Rooney.
According to Mr Rooney, Thomas Roberts was held in very high esteem in eighteenth century Ireland because the patronage he enjoyed was of the absolutely highest order. He received commissions from Lord Powerscourt and the Leinster's of Carton. "They were commissioning Roberts on the basis of the quality of his work… he was receiving commissions from very significant patrons in his early twenties, which is really extraordinary."
"We have the best of the best here," concluded Mr Rooney.