Seán Kissane reflects on the career of Gerda Frömel whose handling of form echoes Brancusi’s statement ‘Beauty is absolute equity.’
Gerda Frömel is among a group of German artists such as Joseph Beuys, Frank Auerbach, Eva Hesse and Georg Baselitz, whose work emerged from a post-war environment that sought to address themes of trauma and the body. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1931 to a family of German descent, her early experiences were marked by the Second World War and the ‘German Expulsions’ from the Sudetenland in its immediate aftermath. In 1945 her family were forced from their home and became refugees, settling firstly in Austria and finally in Stuttgart where Fr√∂mel enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in 1948. She went on to study metalwork and sculpture in Darmstadt and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
Overcoming the slow down at home, Irish architects Heneghan Peng, Grafton Architects, O’Donnell+Tuomey amongst others have looked to international competitions, but overseas projects are not without risk, writes John McLaughlin
In addition to creating a likeness of her daughter, Geraldine O’Neill has in mind the age-old interrogation of representation, writes Robert Ballagh of this year’s recipient of the Ireland-U.S. Council/Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award
James Watson could trace his family’s artistic lineage to York Minster and following his move to Cork he launched a new tradition to last a hundred years, writes Vera Ryan.