Stephanie McBride appraises photographs of the West of Ireland by American photographer Helen Hooker O’Malley
When the artist Helen Hooker O’Malley first met Maud Gonne, then in her eighties, she was ‘absolutely bewitched’ by her; she had an equally engaged response on first meeting her future husband, Ernie O’Malley, referring to his ‘dedicated face, like a cliff, or the prow of a ship’. Such observations also reveal a sculptor’s eye, a measured appraisal of a potential subject. Hooker O’Malley had a similarly direct approach in her photography, which she pursued alongside a wide range of artistic practices besides sculpture, including theatre set and costume design and poetry.
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