Hilary Heron
Ireland's Most Promising Sculptor - symposium
A couple of weeks ago I hauled myself off to Dublin (took 1.5 hours to get there on public transit) to attend the Hilary Heron (1921-1977) symposium. The symposium was a full day event held at Trinity College, co-presented by IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) to co-incide with a major retrospective exhibition of Heron’s work, which will be on display there until Oct 28th.
Having never heard of Heron before, I was surprised that there was going to be a symposium about her, never mind a retrospective at IMMA, but my curiosity got the better of me and I booked a place and looked forward to the full day of finding out who she was.
In the morning there was a (very necessary) overview of Heron’s career as a sculptor by Dr Billy Shortall, who had done research into her as both an MA and PHD student.
It most certainly was eye-opening to realise that, in fact, Heron had quite an illustrious career as an artist, co-representing Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1956 among other accolades. It was enlightening to see her work through a feminist, contemporary lens.
The only reason that could be offered for her elimination from Irish art history is her gender. That a woman of her calibre and visibility during her lifetime can be completely erased after death is hugely worrying to the likes of me, who struggles to gain any visibility during my lifetime! While my work is included in important art collections - for instance, the State has bought two of my paintings, from different series, at different periods of time - after almost 40 years of practice, I am still not represented by any art gallery/art dealer.
As well as more academic speakers, the day also included practicing artist responses to Heron’s work, and I must admit it was these talks that I found most interesting. The symposium went slightly over time and, exhausted, I decided that I would make my way to IMMA on another day in order to view the Hilary Heron exhibition, which was being launched that evening.