Alone in the gallery, Derek Hill sits watching people and their reactions. The works on show are by two painters, both dead: James Dixon and Alfred Wallis. He has loaned a dozen paintings by Dixon, the Tory Island painter, to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, for an exhibition which runs until late November. Hill, an internationally established painter, is 83 years old. It was he who discovered and encouraged Dixon. "He discovered me," Hill points out, with a twinkle in his eye. "He came along to the gallery and said I can do better than that."
Almost 50 paintings by Dixon and the Cornish painter, Wallis, another seaman who also took up painting late in life, are on view.
Hill's own desire to paint has never left him, he says, and there's no sign of it drying up. "Luckily, no, it's all I can enjoy doing and all I can do," he says. "I'm not good at anything else." Some 18 years ago he donated his house, gallery and more than 300 works in Co Donegal to the Irish people - "I gave it to you," he adds emphatically.
Derrig and Hilary Monks, from Monkstown, Co Dublin, are delighted with the Two Painters exhibition. "The work is coming from inside the person," says Hilary excitedly. "I'm coming back tomorrow - I can't wait to buy the catalogue." John Dullaghan, a retired major in the US Marines living in Ireland, and his wife, Maureen, are here too. They live in Gartan, Co Donegal, having moved from Virginia six years ago.
Prof Anne Crookshank, formerly of TCD, who is "down from Donegal for the day", insists "I'm not conceivably social." Dr Robert McCarthy, dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, is there too for the opening, as are Chris Bailey, arts and heritage manager with Belfast City Council, and his daughter, Alice (12).