HENRY FLANAGAN O.P. (1918-1992) — Preacher in Stone

ed. Caitríona Fallon

essay by Brian Fallon; foreword by Martin Gale; texts by Henry Flanagan, Raymond O’Donovan

ISBN 978 0948037 054 (hardback)  //  ISBN 978 0948037 061 (paperback)    
88 pages   27x23.5cm    99 illus 

This book is a celebration of the life and work of an exceptional man. It presents a cross-section from Flanagan’s very large body of work (over 400 pieces) over a 40-year period, including both religious and secular works. It illustrates his talent for working in various media, especially stone and wood, and high­lights his sympathetic depiction of the human form. As well as labouring in his own personal realm as a sculptor, Henry Flanagan taught at Newbridge College in Co Kildare. He was also involved in many extra-curricular activities, organising the Arts and Crafts Club, the school choir, and an adult group called the Aquinas Singers. With this range of endeavour, it is easy to see how his influence as an artist and as a man of culture touched many people. 

EXTRACTS

"My own personal experience of Fr Flanagan began in 1959 when my brother and I entered Newbridge College as boarders. To a ten-year-old boy he seemed a powerful and, indeed, intimidating figure. But it was noticeable that when he recognised in a pupil that spark of interest in matters cultural, or any sign of a creative curiosity, his encouragement and his pleasure were genuine. It seemed as if his faith in humanity had somehow been restored by the discovery of a potential kindred spirit among the ‘barbarians’ (his phrase). He would go to endless lengths to nurture and develop any hint of talent or cultural awareness in a student. To this end he organised and ran the Arts and Crafts Club – a valuable oasis and a real asset to the life of the college. He created an environment into which a student came to work with his hands, to actually make things, rather than to breath the rarefied air of an exclusive club for the ‘artistically inclined’. He himself worked in the same room, casting or carving, always with some project on the go, while any number of students would be milling about, making everything from bookshelves to furniture to sculpture. Just working in that atmosphere was a valuable and formative experience for many ... It is our good fortune that he lived and worked in our time. This handsome book, a landmark publication, will stand as a lasting testament to the work of a true Renaissance man."

— from the foreword by Martin Gale

"Henry Flanagan OP was in himself a remarkable man, apart from his achievement as a sculptor. He was pedagogue, cleric, musician, trainer of the young, enthusiast in various fields – in short, an inspirational personality who somehow also found the time and energy to be an artist in a particularly demanding field. There is no more taxing vocation than that of sculptor, which needs real physical stamina and guts, as well as wide-ranging technical ability...
         Flanagan can hardly be judged on conventional terms as an artist, since art for him was, by sheer pressure of necessity, a part-time activity, even if he did not spare himself in its pursuit. He was outside the Modern movement, a traditionalist rather than an original, and he involved himself in no art groups or politics, but he was no tame provincial academician either. Over busy, productive decades he mastered a range of techniques and materials ­– wood and stone, concrete and metal, clay and plaster, copper and bronze, even enamels – and had a thoroughly professional and self-critical approach to his work ... the large commissioned works include some of the most convincing public sculptures created in Ireland over the past half-century. The big, genial artist-teacher-musician of Newbridge has – to use a sculptural metaphor – carved his own modest niche in the Irish pantheon."

— from the essay by Brian Fallon