DUBLIN.- IMMA presents Hilary Heron: A Retrospective, an exhibition of some 60 works celebrating the pioneering work of modernist sculptor Hilary Heron (1923 – 1977). As the first major retrospective exhibition of Heron’s work since 1964, this exhibition seeks to correct the ways that her work has been overlooked in Irish and international histories of modern sculpture.
Hilary Heron was a Dublin born sculptor who co-represented Ireland at the 1956 Venice Biennale alongside painter Louis le Brocquy (1916 – 2012). The exhibition brings together work from national and international collections, including carvings, welding and castings. Heron was a master welder, a practice highly unusual for an Irish artist, let alone a woman in the 1950s. Her work tactfully and skilfully broaches themes of gender, relationships, deep histories and religion through impressive, varied mediums including stone, lead, steel and wood.
Commenting on the exhibition, Seán Kissane, Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA, said: “This exhibition aims to bring Heron’s work back into public focus, and to publish a monograph with images and commentary on her work making it available to future audiences. Although Heron carved out a successful career for herself during her lifetime, problems of historiography and how the art market values the work of women less than that of men, meant that her work fell into obscurity after her death.”
Highlights from the exhibition include those works shown at the Venice Biennale each loosely on the theme of birds and the human body. Of these, Virgo (1950) is the most life-like rendition of the body, unlike each of the other sculptures which propose highly exaggerated features, like the Idol (1951) whose neck has been stretched and whose hair forms two shoulder-like appendages; or the Stiff Necked Woman (undated) whose body has been exaggerated almost to the point of abstraction.
Presented alongside Heron’s work is a display of works titled Redux: Contemporary Irish sculptors at Venice. This display features the work of Siobhán Hapaska, Eva Rothschild, and Niamh O’Malley, all female sculptors who represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2001, 2019, and 2022 respectively. Redux, meaning revival, signals Heron’s enduring influence on contemporary Irish sculpture and her legacy in proximity to contemporary sculptural practice, making her influence visible for the first time.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published by IMMA, with texts by Riann Coulter, Seán Kissane, Sara Damaris Muthi, Billy Shortall, and Eva Rothschild.
Hilary Heron was born in Dublin in 1923, the same period which saw the establishment of the Irish Free State. Heron studied sculpture at the National College of Art, where she won the prestigious Taylor Art Scholarship Prize three years running in 1944, 1945 and 1946. With her Mainie Jellett travel scholarship, Heron bought a motorbike and travelled throughout Europe and to Paris, where her contact was Samuel Beckett. She was represented by Ireland’s most important commercial gallery, the Waddington Galleries, who presented her first solo exhibition in 1950. Heron’s international visibility as Ireland’s foremost modern sculptor was reinforced when she was selected to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1956 alongside Louis le Brocquy. Heron’s key influences include the environment and art circles of Post War Paris, Existentialism, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Frink, and Leslie Waddington, amongst others.
