Imogen Stuart

She studied in Bavaria under the sculptor and professor Otto Hitzberger, who became her main mentor. She met fellow Hitzberger student and Irish sculptor Ian Stuart while in Bavaria in 1948. The couple moved to Ireland in 1949, at first living at his parents' house in Glendalough, County Wicklow, before moving to Sandycove, County Dublin. Ian Stuart was the grandson of the Irish republican revolutionary Maud Gonne. The couple married in 1951, had three daughters but separated in 1970 and divorced later. During her long career, Imogen became one of Ireland's most renowned sculptors, with her work placed in both public spaces and private collections throughout Europe and the U.S.

• Name — Imogen Stuart • Birth Name — Imogen Werner • Born — 25 May 1927 • Birthplace — Berlin, Germany • Died — 24 March 2024 • Place of death — Dublin, Ireland • Occupation — Sculptor • Works — * Stations of the Cross, wood, 1957, The Curragh • Main Doors and Reliefs 1963–4, Galway Cathedral • Altar carvings, Honan Chapel, 1988 • Penal Cross, wood, 1988, Lough Derg • Monument to Pope John Paul II, late 1980s • Portrait bust of Sean McBride, bronze, 1990 • President Mary Robinson, bronze, 1998 • Spouse — Ian Stuart (div. 1973) • Parents — Bruno E. Werner • Website — http: www.imogenstuart.com/

Born Imogen Werner in Berlin in 1927, she was the daughter of Katharina (née Kluger), a former art history student originally from Upper Silesia (now part of Poland), and the influential and internationally known art critic and writer Bruno E. Werner (1896–1964), one of Germany's leading art critics and an editor for the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, who championed the Bauhaus movement. Imogen and her only sibling, Sibylle, spent their childhoods in pre-war 1920s Berlin. Encouraged by their father, both developed an interest in drawing and sculpting at a young age. They were taught the techniques of arts and crafts and sculpture by friends of their father. By early 1945, when the Russian army was advancing towards Berlin, Imogen's "golden childhood came to an end" and both daughters were moved to a convent in Bavaria, while their father went into hiding from the Nazis. He was in Dresden, where he had grown up, during the February 1945 bombing of the city. He recounted the experience in his best-selling 1949 book Die Galeere. In Munich, she studied under the sculptor and professor Otto Hitzberger, a retired professor for the Berlin University of the Arts, who taught her modelling, carving and relief techniques across a variety of materials. He became her mentor and she later described him as her most important influence. There, in 1948 she met her future husband, the Irishman Ian Stuart (1926–2013). He had also studied under Hitzberger and is often referred to as the "finest Irish sculptor" of his generation.

They became inseparable during their early relationship, when Stuart would sing Irish rebel songs to her. The couple first visited Ireland in 1949 and moved permanently there that year, at first living in with his parents at Laragh Castle near Glendalough, County Wicklow, into what the writer Kate Robinson described as a family containing a "notable mixture of politics and literature". Ian's mother Iseult Gonne was married to the writer Francis Stuart and was the daughter of Maud Gonne, the Irish revolutionary and feminist, known internationally as W. B. Yeats's muse. She was not intimidated by his family, being a highly educated and skilled artist in her own right. By coincidence, Iseult was a friend of the German diplomat Eduard Hempel, a former German Minister to Ireland who was a friend of Imogen's father. Imogen said of her relocation to Ireland: "It is very hard to describe how different this country was from the country from which I had come. It was a totally different world, on a different planet. The Catholicism, the nationalism, the magical countryside, made it all seem like going back a hundred years." They had three daughters: Aoibheann, Siobhan and Aisling. Siobhan died in a car crash in September 1998 and is buried in Glendalough. Both were preoccupied with religious sculpture in wood and stone throughout their careers. They held a number of joint exhibitions, notably in 1959 at the Dawson gallery, Dublin, while they both exhibited at the 1962 Biennale in Salzburg, Austria. Although she became somewhat overshadowed by her husband during this early period, during which she held only a few one-woman shows.

In the 1970s the Church began to seek a revival of religious art, led by a number of progressive leaders who recognised that the Church had under-invested in this aspect for centuries, with Imogen becoming a favourite of many church leaders; notably, she was given the newly created title "Artist in Charge" of the redesign of a number of churches, meaning she was given responsibility for hiring other artists, as well as architects, craftsmen and masons. This led to the careers of several notable Irish visual artists, including the stained glass designer Harry Clarke (b. 1889).

From 1949 on, Stuart spent her life in Ireland. She died aged 96 on 24 March 2024, having been actively working until near the end of her life.

• Illustration — The Virgin and Child (1991), on display at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Stuart's work is informed by German expressionist sculptors such as Ernst Barlach, but in a sensibility also influenced by the later Romanesque and Gothic art periods. She primarily carved wood, but also worked from bronze, stone, steel, clay and terracotta. Her first impression of Ireland in the late 1950s was of a country lacking a distinct visual culture, which she then sought to establish. Her work often combines modern European trends in modern art with styles and motifs from early medieval Irish illuminated manuscripts and Insular metalwork. It has been described as having a deep foundation in Christian spirituality, but in "its deceptive simplicity" is both modern and devotional. She also produced collections of silver, gold and bronze jewellery and a series of drawings.

• Illustration — The heritage wall, Maynooth She became a prolific sculptor for both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland church interiors. Well-known examples include the altarpieces and baptismal font in the Honan Chapel, in Cork City. Her work also includes public art and monuments and portrait heads, including a bust of ex-president Mary Robinson now in Áras an Uachtaráin (the presidential residence in Dublin), and a Bust of the art critic Brian Fallon. Her public sculptures include the monumental sculpture of Pope John Paul II in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, the 2005 Flame Of Human Dignity at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, Her 1969 Statue of Saint Brendan was created with Ian Stuart and is positioned in the town square in Bantry, County Cork. She worked with architects, designers and metalsmiths throughout her career, including with Vicki Donovan, Phil O'Neill and Ciaran Byrne. With Donovan she produced the silver tabernacle in St. Mel's Cathedral, Longford.

• Illustration — Statue of Saint Brendan, with Ian Stuart, Bantry, County Cork, 1969 • Illustration — The altar in the Honan Chapel, Cork, c. 1986 • Illustration — The Hands of Peace, 1989. Market Square, Cavan town. Many of Stuart's later works combine imagery of dolmens and praying hands. • Illustration — Angel of Peace, bronze, 2008. St. Teresa's Carmelite Church, Dublin. • Illustration — Sanctuary cross, cast bronze, with Vicki Donovan, St Mel's Cathedral, County Longford • Illustration — Tabernacle, St. Mel's Cathedral, Longford. This work evokes the early medieval format of a House-shaped shrine, with the upper portion directly referencing the 12th century Saint Manchan's Shrine.