Imogen Stuart | |
|---|---|
 Imogen Stuart in 2011 | |
| Born | Imogen Werner 1927 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | 24 March 2024(2024-03-24) (aged 96) Dublin, Ireland |
| Occupation | Sculptor |
| Notable work |
|
| Spouse | Ian Stuart (div. 1973) |
| Parent | Bruno E. Werner |
| Website | www |
Imogen Stuart (néeWerner; 1927 – 24 March 2024) was a German-Irish[3] sculptor, influenced by 19th-centuryExpressionism andearly Irish Christian art. She mainly produced wood and stone for settings for churches but also created many secular works, and was exhibited internationally.
Born and raised in pre-war Berlin as the daughter of the art criticBruno E. Werner, she was exposed tomodern developments in the visual arts from an early age and a significant influence on her later work. She studied inBavaria under the sculptor and professorOtto Hitzberger, who became an early mentor. She met her fellow Hitzberger student and later important Irish sculptor Ian Stuart while in Bavaria in 1948. The couple moved to Ireland in 1961, at first living at his parents' house inGlendalough,Co. Wicklow, before moving toSandycove,Co. Dublin.[4] Ian Stuart was the grandson of theIrish republican revolutionaryMaud Gonne. They had three daughters but divorced in 1973.
During her long career, she became one of Ireland's best-known sculptors, with her work placed in both public spaces and private collections throughout Europe and the U.S.
Born Imogen Werner in Berlin in 1927,[5] she was the daughter of Katharina (née Klug), a formerart history student originally fromUpper Silesia (now part of Poland), and the influential and internationally known art critic and writerBruno E. Werner (1896–1964),[5][6] Germany's leading art critic and an editor for theDeutsche Allgemeine newspaper, who had championed theBauhaus movement.[7] Imogen and her only sibling, Sybil,[8] spent their childhoods in pre-war 1920s Berlin. Encouraged by their father, the two developed an interest in drawing and sculpting at a young age. Both were taught the techniques ofarts and crafts and sculpture by friends of their father.[9]By early 1945, when the Russian army wasadvancing towards Berlin, Imogen's "golden childhood came to an end" and both daughters were moved to a convent inBavaria, while their father went into hiding from theNazis.[9] He was inDresden, where he had grown up, during the February 1945bombing of the city. He recounted the experience in his best-selling 1949 bookDie Galeere.[7]
In Munich, she studied under the sculptor and professorOtto Hitzberger, a retired professor for theBerlin University of the Arts, who taught her modelling, carving andrelief techniques across a variety of materials. He became her mentor and she later described him as her most important influence.[10]
There, in 1948 she met her future husband, the IrishmanIan Stuart (1926–2013). He had also studied under Hitzberger and is often referred to as the "finest Irish sculptor" of his generation.[11]
They became inseparable during their early time together, when Stuart would singIrish rebel songs to her.[11] The couple first visited Ireland in 1949 and moved permanently there that year,[12] at first living in with his parents at Laragh Castle nearGlendalough,County Wicklow, into what the writer Kate Robinson described as a family containing a "notable mixture of politics and literature".[13] Ian's motherIseult Gonne was married to the writerFrancis Stuart and was the daughter ofMaud Gonne, the Irish revolutionary and feminist, known internationally as the muse for the poetW. B. Yeats.[13] She was not intimidated by his family, being a highly educated and skilled artist in her own right. By coincidence, Iseult was a friend of the German diplomatEduard Hempel, a former German Minister to Ireland who was a friend of Imogen's father.[12]
Imogen said of her relocation to Ireland: "It is very hard to describe how different this country was from the country from which I had come. It was a totally different world, on a different planet. The Catholicism, the nationalism, the magical countryside, made it all seem like going back a hundred years."[12] They had three daughters: Aoibheann, Siobhan and Aisling. Siobhan died in a car crash in September 1998 and is buried in Glendalough.[14][15]
Both were preoccupied with religious sculpture in wood and stone throughout their careers. They held a number of joint exhibitions, notably in 1959 at theDawson gallery, Dublin, while they both exhibited at the 1962Biennale inSalzburg,Austria.[11] Although she became somewhat overshadowed by her husband during this early period, during which she held only a few one-woman shows.
In the 1970s the Church began to seek a revival of religious art, led by a number of progressive leaders who recognised that the Church had under-invested in this aspect for centuries, with Imogen becoming a favourite of many church leaders; notably, she was given the newly created title "Artist in Charge" of the redesign of a number of churches, meaning she was given responsibility for hiring other artists, as well as architects, craftsmen and masons.[16] This led to the careers of a number of notable Irish visual artists, of whom one of the best known is the stained glass designerHarry Clarke (b. 1889).
Stuart spent most of her life in Ireland.[14] She died aged 96 on 24 March 2024, having been actively working until near the end of her life.[17][18]
Stuart's work is informed by 19th century Germanexpressionist sculptors such asErnst Barlach, but in a sensibility also influenced by the laterRomanesque andGothic art periods.[19][20] She primarily carvedwood, but also worked from bronze, stone, steel,clay andterracotta.[4][21]
Her first impression of Ireland in the late 1950s was of a country lackeing a distinct visual culture, which then sought to lay foundations for. Her work often combines modern European trends in modern art with styles and motifs from early medieval Irishilluminated manuscripts andInsular metalwork. It has been described as having a deep foundation in Christian spirituality, but in "its deceptive simplicity" is both modern and devotional.[22]
She also produced collections of silver, gold and bronze jewellery and a series of drawings.[23]
.jpg)
She became a prolific sculptor for both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland church interiors. Well-known examples include the altarpieces and baptismal font in theHonan Chapel, inCork City.[4][25]
"Within the sharply defined limits of material, subject, space, size and money given, I learned to develop within myself a great freedom of expression. My life is full of gifts or minor miracles. I never intellectualize – the eyes and senses dictate my hands directly. Once the work has been completed a symbolism becomes so obviously and profoundly evident that I have to regard it as supernatural."[26]
Her work also includes public art and monuments and portrait heads, including a bust of ex-presidentMary Robinson now inÁras an Uachtaráin (the presidential residence in Dublin), and a Bust of the art criticBrian Fallon.[18] Her public sculptures include themonumental sculpture ofPope John Paul II inSt. Patrick's College, Maynooth,[1][27] the 2005Flame Of Human Dignity at theCentre Culturel Irlandais, Paris,[28][1]
Her 1969Statue of Saint Brendan was created with Ian Stuart and is positioned in the town square inBantry, County Cork.[29]
The stations of the Cross inBallintubber Abbey, Co. Mayo. by Imogen Stuart are were commissioned in the early 1970's, Imogen repainted all the stations of the Cross for the Abbey's Octo Centenery in 2016, the station of the cross are displayed with pride on the walls of the Nave of the Historic Abbey.
She worked with architects, designers andmetalsmiths throughout her career, including with Vicki Donovan, Phil O'Neill and Ciaran Byrne.[18] With Donovan she produced the silvertabernacle inSt. Mel's Cathedral,Longford.[30]
A professor of sculpture at theRoyal Hibernian Academy,Dublin, she was also a member ofAosdána,[23] and received honorary doctorates from Trinity College Dublin (2002), University College Dublin (2004), and NUI Maynooth (2005).[31] She was electedSaoi ("wise one") by Aosdána in 2015 as the highest honour that can be bestowed by the state-supported association of Irish creative artists.[32]
In 2010 she was awarded the McAuley medal (named afterCatherine McAuley, founder of theSisters of Mercy in 1831) by the Irish presidentMary McAleese, who paid tribute to her "genius", crafting "a canon of work that synthesises our complex past, present images and possible futures...as an intrinsic part of the narrative of modern Irish art".[28] The biographyImogen Stuart, Sculptor on her work and life was published in 2002 by the art critic and writerBrian Fallon, and included a foreword by the archaeologist and historianPeter Harbison.[33]
.jpg)
![The Hands of Peace, 1989. Market Square, Cavan town. Many of Stuart's later works combine imagery of dolmens and praying hands.[34][35][36]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aThe_Hands_Cavan_Town_-_panoramio_(cropped).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
