IRISH STEEL — John Burke / Jim Buckley / Maud Cotter / John Gibbons / Eilís O’Connell / Vivienne Roche

ed. John O’Regan

essays by Peter Murray and Mark Ewart

ISBN 978 0946641 598      64 pages (paperback)    24 x 17 cm    40 illus

This book is an acknowledgement of and a tribute to the artist and lecturer John Burke, whose inspirational approach to teaching sculpture at the Crawford College of Art during the 1970s was to influence a whole new generation of Irish sculptors. He initiated something of a renaissance in sculpture in Ireland, and his former students are now some of the country’s best-know and most successful artists, both at national and international level. Featuring work by six contemporary Irish sculptors, each with colour plates, individual text, and detailed biography on each.

EXTRACT

"Under Burke’s tutelage in the early seventies the sculpture department of the Crawford School of Art enjoyed a considerable renaissance. Among the outstanding students who enrolled in 1970 were John Gibbons, Vivienne Roche, Eilís O’Connell, and Maud Cotter. Robbie McDonald joined the class shortly afterwards, while James Scanlon enrolled as a full-time student in 1974, after attending night classes for two years, and Jim Buckley enrolled the following year. The majority of these students were to win the Cork Arts Society Student of the Year Award. In reviewing their progress over the ensuing twenty years, it is clear that, whatever the disparities in their individual approaches to art, these artists have been united in their resolute, determined and professional approach to the development of their careers. It is tempting to ascribe their success to the tuition and inspiration they encountered at the Crawford, although clearly there are many other factors to consider. However, the signs of Burke’s teachings still predominate, particularly in terms of the confident and imaginative use of welded steel.
          Nearly a quarter of a century on, Burke’s former students, while differing marginally in their recollections of the most salient features of his teaching style, are united in acknowledging his crucial influence. McDonald and O’Connell recall Burke assembling his class in the lecture theatre and showing them slides of sculptures from the time of Rodin to Calder. These were not formal lectures but more discussion groups in which students and tutor participated on an equal level. Gibbons describes him as more of a facilitator than a teacher in the conventional sense, and points out that Burke was young, just a few years older than his students...
          Burke was a passionate and dedicated teacher, who, although committed to his own personal vision of abstract steel sculpture, did not adopt a rigid or doctrinaire attitude. Gibbons recalls ‘You had to fight him, but he made you believe in yourself.’ The strength of the sculpture department at the Crawford during this period became legendary; there was nothing similar happening in Limerick or Dublin, in which latter city during this time the National College of Art was wracked by crises. For a brief period with Burke and his students there was a shared confidence that the art school system, and indeed society in a wider sense, could be changed by engaging in student activist movements and through marching, sit-ins and demonstrations. It was a time of optimism."

— from the essay by Peter Murray