Her first solo show was at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1972. The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester held a retrospective (which toured) in 1977. In the 1960s and 1970s, her work was largely conceptual with her Irish ancestry contributing to the subject of many works depicting the political situation in Northern Ireland. Rita Donagh's work on the H Block prisons in Northern Ireland was shown with her husband Richard Hamilton, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1984. Hamilton's influence of collage and oil paint showed up in her works of the 1970s.
Later, she focused on the human figure including such work as Slade of 1994. She continued her interest in politics with works such as Downing Street Declaration (1993) which included a Hamilton-esque, televised image of Prime Minister John Major.
Donagh, who was widowed in 2011, lives and works in Oxfordshire.
Her work is in the permanent collection of the Tate Gallery.
Solo Exhibitions
1972 - Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London
1975 - 'Display', The Gallery, London
1977 - Rita Donagh Paintings and Drawings, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Touring to Central Art Gallery, Wolverhampton; Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast; Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Sunderland; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
1972 - John Moores Exhibition 8, Liverpool (prize-winner), and Drawings, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
1973 - I I English Artists, Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden and Kunsthalle, Bremen
1974 - British Painting, Hayward Gallery, London
1975 - 7th International Festival of Painting, Cagnes sur Mer, France, and Contemporary British Drawings, 13th Biennale, Sao Paulo, and Body and Soul, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1976 - Arte Inglese Oggi, Palazzo Reale, Milan
1978 - Hayward Annual '78, Hayward Gallery, London, and Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London, and Art for Society, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1979 - European Dialogue, Sydney Biennale
1980 - The Newcastle Connection, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1983 - The Granada Connection, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1985 - Painting and Photography, St. Martin's School of Art, London, and Hayward Annual '85, Hayward Gallery, London