One of Ireland's best-known artists, Pauline Bewick, has donated over 600 of her works to the State in what President Mary McAleese has described as "one of the loveliest acts of generosity ever given to our nation".
The collection, estimated to be worth in the region of €3 million, is to be split three ways.
One third will be permanently displayed by Kerry County Council at new offices in Killorglin, a further third will form a travelling exhibition touring Ireland and overseas, and the final third has been given to the Waterford Institute of Technology.
The Waterford collection, known as The Seven Ages, features over 200 drawings, paintings, ceramics and tapestries created by the artist over the past seven decades. It ranges from drawings made as a child in the 1930s through to watercolours painted this year.
President McAleese yesterday unveiled the permanent collection and said "the Waterford institute and the city and people of Waterford and the southeast region now have this remarkable addition to their cultural heritage and attractions".
Ms Bewick had been invited to choose a building on the campus to house the collection and selected the Walton building, designed by A&D Wejchert, the Dublin-based firm of architects and named after Ernest Walton, the Co Waterford-born 1951 Nobel Physics Laureate.
She said it was "just perfect" and "a mini-Guggenheim" in a reference to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed art gallery on New York's Fifth Avenue.
Prof Kieran R Byrne, director of the institute noted that "all too frequently in the past, Ireland's literary and visual artists were only recognised posthumously. We anticipate that the permanent housing of the Bewick collection in Waterford will help ensure that Pauline Bewick wins the recognition she deserves while she is still very much alive."
The artist was born in England in 1935 but was taken to Ireland in early childhood by her mother and brought up on a farm in Co Kerry. She has spent most of life in Ireland apart from spells in Italy and the south Pacific, is a member of both the Royal Hibernian Academy and of Aosdána, and is best-known for an exhibition called the Yellow Man which attracted large crowds in Dublin during 1996. She lives in Co Kerry where she continues to work. Her prolific output is frequently to be found at art auctions and for sale at commercial galleries.
For yesterday's ceremony, Ms Bewick wore a dress "inspired" by her paintings, based on the theme "swimming through life", made by Cork couturier, Ann Kearns.