Brian Lalor rediscovers a forgotten sculptor and teacher
In a prescient observation on the work of the Cork sculptor, Joseph Higgins (1885-1925), the critic, Hilary Pyle, stated that ‘Presumably the influence of Rodin, discernible in some of his works, came at second hand, or through study of reproductions’.¹ The unidentified channel for this influence was probably the now forgotten teacher, sculptor, and furniture designer, M J McNamara (1869-1929), whose involvement with the School of Art in Cork spanned a period of over forty years. Between his death in 1929 and the publication of a number of documentary references to his student years in 1991,² McNamara’s work as a sculptor, his contribution to art education in Cork, and to the Arts & Crafts movement in Ireland had been totally forgotten
