Cherit Mcinstry Biography
Cherith McKinstry was born in 1928 in a village in Worcestershire, England. He studied at the Belfast College of Art, where he met Terence Flanagan and Basil Blackshaw, becoming lifelong friends. Throughout his career, he created abstract, still life, and figurative works, along with some sculpture in his early days. One of McKinstry's most notable works was the commission for the Belfast Opera House, where he painted six large panels for the building's auditorium. He took inspiration from religion, from the themes of suffering and hardship, as well as from his travels in France and Italy.
McKinstry exhibited regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in the 1990s and in 1987 received an honorary MA from Queen's University, Belfast. She completed several commissions for her husband, including the Church of St McNissi in Magherahoney, County Antrim in 1967, the Stations of the Cross for the Grand Opera House in Belfast in 1979 and six ceiling panels, and the painting of the Students for Queen's University Belfast in 1986.
She exhibited in various exhibitions including the RHA in Dublin and had solo exhibitions at the Ulster Museum in Belfast in 1980 and the Gordon Gallery in Londonderry in 1991. McKinstry died in 2012 at the age of 84, leaving behind a successful artistic career.
