Imogen Stuart

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Imogen Stuart
Imogen Stuart in 2011
Born
Imogen Werner

1927
Berlin, Germany
Died24 March 2024(2024-03-24) (aged 96)
Dublin, Ireland
OccupationSculptor
Notable work
SpouseIan Stuart (div. 1973)
ParentBruno E. Werner [de]
Websitewww.imogenstuart.com

Imogen Stuart (née Werner; 1927 – 24 March 2024) was a German-Irish[3] sculptor, influenced by 19th-century Expressionism and early Irish Christian art. She mainly produced wood and stone for settings for churches, but also produced works in bronze, clay and terracotta, created many secular works, and was exhibited internationally.

Born and raised in pre-war Berlin as the daughter of the well-known art critic Bruno E. Werner [de], she was exposed to modern developments in the visual arts from an early age and a significant influence on her later work. She studied in Bavaria under the sculptor and professor Otto Hitzberger, who became an early mentor. She met the fellow Hitzberger student and later important Irish sculptor Ian Stuart while in Bavaria in 1948. The couple relocated to Ireland in 1961, at first living at his parents' house in Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, before moving to Sandycove, Co. Dublin.[4] Ian Stuart was the grandson of the Irish republican revolutionary Maud Gonne. They had three daughters, but divorced in 1973.

Stuart spent most of her life in Ireland, occasionally returning to live in Berlin. 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.

Life[edit]

Early life[edit]

Born Imogen Werner in Berlin in 1927,[5] she was the daughter of Katharina (née Klug), a former art history student originally from Upper Silesia (now part of Poland), and the influential and internationally known art critic and writer Bruno E. Werner [de] (1896–1964),[5][6] Germany's leading art critic and an editor for the Deutsche Allgemeine newspaper, who had championed the Bauhaus 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 of arts and crafts and sculpture by friends of their father.[9]

Although her father he had served in the First World War, he was partly Jewish, and became aware of the "tremendous rage" in German society that eventually culminated in the Second World War. By early 1945, when the Russian army was advancing towards Berlin, Imogen's "golden childhood came to an end" and both daughters were moved to a convent in Bavaria, while their father went into hiding from the Nazis.[9] He was in Dresden, where he had grown up, during the February 1945 bombing of the city. He recounted the experience in his best-selling 1949 book Die Galeere.[7]

While in Munich, Imogen studied under the sculptor and professor Otto Hitzberger, a retired professor for the Berlin University of the Arts, whom she later described as her key influence. Hitzberger thought her modelling, carving and relief techniques across a variety of materials.[10]

In 1948 she met her future husband, the Irishman Ian Stuart (1926–2013), in Munich. He had also studied under Hitzberger and later became known as the "finest Irish sculptor" of his generation.[11] The son of the writer Francis Stuart d. 2000) and Iseult Gonne (d. 1954),[8] he was a grandson of the Irish republican revolutionary and feminist Maud Gonne (d. 1953), who had earlier been known as a muse for the poet W. B. Yeats (d. 1939).[12] During their courtship, Stuart "sang her Irish rebel songs and soon they were inseparable."[11]

Move to Ireland[edit]

Altar carvings, Honan Chapel, Cork, c. 1986

The couple moved to Ireland in 1949, at first living in with his parents at Laragh Castle near Glendalough, County Wicklow, into what—given his family background—the writer Kate Robinson described as a "notable mixture of politics and literature".[12] She later said that "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."[13]

Figures at the front of the altar in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh

They had three daughters: Aoibheann, Siobhan and Aisling. Siobhan died in a car crash in September 1998 and is buried in Glendalough.[14] In these early years, both mainly produced religious sculpture in wood and stone. They held a number of joint exhibition, notably in 1959 at the Dawson gallery, Dublin, while they both exhibited at the 1962 Biennale in Salzburg, Austria.[11] She became somewhat overshadowed by her husband during this early period, during which she held only a few one-woman shows.[15]

The couple divorced in 1973 after a long separation. She spent most of the remainder of her life in Ireland.[14]

She died on 24 March 2024 aged 96.[16][17]

Style and material[edit]

The Virgin and Child (1991), on display at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Stuart's work is informed by 19th century German expressionist sculptors such as Ernst Barlach, but in a sensibility also influenced by the later Romanesque and Gothic art periods.[18][19] She worked in wood, bronze, stone, steel, clay and terracotta, and although her primary was producing settings for churches borrowing from later Insular art, she also designed and sculpted many secular works.[4][20]

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

— Imogen Stuart in Notes on the Life of a Sculptor[21]

She also produced collections of silver, gold and bronze jewelry, and series of drawings.[22]

Work[edit]

The heritage wall, Maynooth[23]

As the most prolific sculptor for both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland churches interiors, examples of her work care found across Ireland. Her best-known sculptures include the monumental sculpture of Pope John Paul II in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth[1][24] and the carved altar and baptismal font in the Honan Chapel, in Cork City.[4][25]

Her work extends beyond church settings, and includes public art and monuments as well as portrait heads. Her portraits include a bust of ex-president Mary Robinson now in Áras an Uachtaráin (the presidential residence in Dublin), and a Bust of the art critic Brian Fallon.[17] Among her public monuments are the Flame Of Human Dignity at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris;[26] and the sculpture of Pope John Paul II in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.[1]

During her later career she often worked with architects, designers and metalsmiths such as Vicki Donovan, Phil O'Neill and Ciaran Byrne.[17] She designed the sculpture in the town square of Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare. With Donovan she produced the silver tabernacle in St. Mel's Cathedral, Longford.[27]

Legacy[edit]

A professor of sculpture at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, she was also a member of Aosdána,[22] and received honorary doctorates from Trinity College Dublin (2002), University College Dublin (2004), and NUI Maynooth (2005).[32] She was elected Saoi ("wise one") by Aosdána in 2015 as the highest honour that can be bestowed by the state-supported association of Irish creative artists.[33]

In 2010 she was awarded the McAuley medal (named after Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy in 1831) by the Irish president Mary 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".[34] The biography Imogen Stuart, Sculptor on her work and life was published in 2002 by the art critic and writer Brian Fallon, and included a foreword by the archaeologist and historian Peter Harbison.[35]

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Forristal 1987, pp. 648–651.
  2. ^ "Visual Arts: Imogen Stuart". Aosdána, Irish Arts Council. Retrieved 30 March 2024
  3. ^ "Interview with Miriam O'Callaghan". RTÉ Radio 1, Miriam meets, 17 May 2012. Retrieved 25 March 2024
  4. ^ a b c Heaney 2024.
  5. ^ a b Fallon 2001, p. 160.
  6. ^ Maertz 2019, p. 132.
  7. ^ a b Scally 2005.
  8. ^ a b Robinson 2002, p. 215.
  9. ^ a b Robinson 2002, p. 216.
  10. ^ Robinson 2002, pp. 216–218.
  11. ^ a b c "Talented sculptor known for quality of religious and secular work". The Irish Times, 23 February 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2024
  12. ^ a b Robinson 2002, pp. 215, 218.
  13. ^ Robinson 2002, p. 217.
  14. ^ a b "A life in stone: Sculptor Imogen Stuart reflects on her life". 2 October 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  15. ^ Fallon 2022, p. 12.
  16. ^ "Stuart, Imogen: Death". The Irish Times, March 2024. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  17. ^ a b c Scally 2024.
  18. ^ Robinson 2002, p. 218.
  19. ^ Walker 1989, p. 208.
  20. ^ Daly 1974.
  21. ^ Stuart, Imogen (1988), "Notes on the Life of a Sculptor", Milltown Studies 22, pp. 92–94
  22. ^ a b "Aosdána – Members – Imogen Stuart". Aosdána. Retrieved 26 March 2024.
  23. ^ "A Brief History of the College". St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth County Kildare. Retrieved 31 March 2024
  24. ^ Robinson 2002, p. 222.
  25. ^ O'Callaghan 2016, p. 168.
  26. ^ "Imogen Stuart".
  27. ^ McDonagh 2014.
  28. ^ Robinson 2002, p. 219.
  29. ^ O'Donohue, Bryan. "Tokens". Irish Arts Council, 1993. Retrieved 26 March 2024
  30. ^ McGarry 2008.
  31. ^ McBride 2008.
  32. ^ "The Arts Council expresses its sadness at the passing of Aosdána member and Saoi, sculptor Imogen Stuart". Arts council of Ireland, 25 March 2024. Retrieved 26 March 2024
  33. ^ Duncan, Pamela (16 September 2015). "Imogen Stuart, Edna O'Brien and William Trevor elected Saoithe". Irish Times. Retrieved 26 March 2024.
  34. ^ Scally 2010.
  35. ^ Robinson 2002, pp. 215–222.

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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