LANE, SIR HUGH PERCY (1875-1915), Irish art col lector, was born in Co. Cork on Nov. 9, 1875, the son of the Rev. J. W. Lane. He entered the firm of Colnaghi and Company in 1893 and rapidly made a name as a connoisseur of extraordinary perception. In 1898 he began dealing on his own account. He took a prominent part in the revival of an interest in art in Ireland, especially in establishing a gallery of modern art in Dublin. A fine collection was ultimately made, and housed in Harcourt street, Dublin, where it was opened in 1906. He was knighted in 1909. He acted as adviser on the formation of the Johannesburg Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (1909), and brought together the Cape Town National Gallery collection of 17th century Dutch pictures (1912). He was in 1914 appointed director of the National Gallery of Ireland. He was drowned in the sinking of the "Lusitania," May 7, 1915. After his death a controversy arose about a collection of pictures, mostly of the French Impressionist school, which he had lent to Dublin in 1906 and had offered to give if a permanent gallery were provided.
As this condition was not complied with he withdrew the loan and lent these pictures to the National Gallery in London, to which he bequeathed them in 1913. However, before sailing to America in 1915, he made a codicil to his will restoring the pic tures to Dublin; but this codicil was unwitnessed, and on Lane's death the National Gallery became possessed of the pictures. On Dublin protesting, a committee was set up in 1924 to con sider the question, and its report (1926) affirmed that Lane thought he was making a legal disposition in his codicil, but that an act of parliament was necessary to put it into force, and that it would not be proper to modify his will by act of parliament. The pictures are now in the Tate Gallery.
See Lady Gregory, Hugh Lane's Life and Achievements: with some account of the Dublin Galleries (192o).