Melanie le Brocquy

Melanie le Brocquy prefers to model on a small rather that a monumental scale. She studied at the national College of Art, Dublin, on the recommendation of her school teachers who thought she could make a living doing illustrations. However she disliked painting, and as the routine at the college was flexible, she began to experiment in the sculpture department and eventually transferred her studies to this area. Her first sculptural work, Head of a cat, was accepted for exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1938. In 1938 and 1939 le Brocquy won the Taylor scholarship which allowed her to go to Geneva to continue her studies at the Ècole des the Musèe Rodin and on her return to Dublin attended classes with Bridget Ganly at the Academy School. In 1942 she held a joint exhibition with her brother Louis. After her marriage to a doctor, Stanley Stewart, and the birth of her four children, she did not practise her art again until the 1960s, when she began working in plaster supported by wire and later in clay, terracotta and wax. In 1966 she made her first visit to America and describes it as a turning point in her career. She visited the galleries in New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Although she had previously become familiar with European galleries she has not been working at the time. Something of a perfectionist, she produces very few works, modelling them carefully before releasing them for exhibition.