Judging Shaw: An Exhibition

abstract:George Bernard Shaw has left a vast legacy of theatrical, fictional, polemical, critical, and philosophical writing. The first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award, Shaw bridges the Victorian era and the contemporary culture of celebrity. The GBS brand came to be recognized globally as referring to an Irish provocateur with a red beard and startling opinions. He was a master of self-invention, a nobody who captured the zeitgeist and one of the first private individuals to understand fully how to generate—and how to use—global fame. The Royal Irish Academy and the National University of Ireland, Galway created a companion exhibition to the publication Judging Shaw by Fintan O'Toole (Royal Irish Academy, 2017). We reproduce the content of the exhibition for readers of SHAW, but the exhibition must be seen in person to appreciate the design and full impact. The touring exhibition is available for loan.