Michael Waldron tracks the shaping of John Hogan’s national art as championed by Young Irelander Thomas Davis
President Higgins’ recent unveiling of a statue in Mallow of Thomas Davis in celebration of the Young Irelander’s bicentenary should generate increased interest in the writer’s place in the formation of Irish national thought. Made in bronze by Dublin’s Cast Foundry and installed as the centrepiece of the North Cork town’s regeneration scheme, it is hoped that similar interest will also be paid to its original sculptor, John Hogan (1800-58). Representing ‘Davis as dreamer and thinker,’ as John Turpin has observed, this commemorative statue already exists in two versions made by Hogan’s own hand (Crawford Art Gallery and Dublin City Hall) which stand as testament to the relationship between the artist and his subject.
Susan Rogers visits woodturner Liam Flynn at his County Limerick studio
William Laffan previews the exhibition ‘Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design 1690-1840′ which opens at the Art Institute of Chicago in March
In his design for the new Coast Guard Station in Doolin, County Clare, Dominic Stevens has discovered his architecture of the Burren; an architecture of abstract rocks, describing the material nature of place, writes Steve Larkin