Fergus Bourke Explained

Fergus Bourke
Birth Date:31 July 1934
Birth Place:Bray, County Wicklow, Irish Free State
Death Place:Ireland
Nationality:Irish
Alma Mater:Presentation College Bray
Occupation:photographer
Years Active:1960s–2004
Known For:street scenes, photo-journalism, portraiture, black-and-white photography

Fergus Ignatius Bourke (31 July 1934 – 8 October 2004) was an Irish photographer. He was a member of Aosdána, an association of Irish artists.[1] [2] [3]

Early life

Bourke was born in Bray in 1934 to Eileen (Eibhlín) Bourke (née Somers) and Thomas Bourke (Tómas de Búrca), who was related to Brendan Behan, Kathleen Behan and Peadar Kearney. His younger brother Brian Bourke was a noted painter.[4] Fergus spent some of his childhood in County Wexford, then attended Presentation College Bray. After that he worked a variety of jobs, and was a stuntman in the film King of Kings (1961), filmed in Spain where Bourke was working as an English teacher.[2]

Career

On returning to Dublin, Bourke was at a party and picked up a copy Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment (Images à la sauvette), which caused him to develop an interest in black-and-white photography. An exhibition at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin in 1968 led to his work becoming known in the US; the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought seven of his pictures for its permanent collection.[4] [5]

Bourke was renowned as a photographer of Dublin street scenes in the 1960s, depicting the tenements and children's street culture. He worked a photo-journalist, documenting poverty in the 1970s. He was also a portraitist, and documented all major productions in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin between 1970 and 1995.[6] [7]

Bourke was elected to the Irish association of artists, Aosdána, in 1981. He held a major retrospective at the Gallery of Photography in Temple Bar, Dublin in 2003, and later in the Galway Arts Centre.[8]

Personal life

He married Maureen O'Connor, an Irish-American from Maplewood, New Jersey, in 1963; they had four children.[2] They lived in Sandymount, Dublin from 1963 until 1992, when they moved to Connemara in County Galway.[2] Bourke died in 2004; his widow donated his remaining prints to the National Photographic Archive.[9]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Aosdána. aosdana.artscouncil.ie.
  2. News: Master of photography who filmed with the eyes of a child. The Irish Times.
  3. Book: Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World. John. O'Donohue. John. Quinn. 6 November 2018. Crown Publishing Group. 9780525575290 . Google Books.
  4. Web site: Bourke, Fergus (Ignatius) | Dictionary of Irish Biography. www.dib.ie.
  5. Web site: Fergus Bourke | MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art.
  6. News: A life in search of wonder and beauty. The Irish Times.
  7. Book: Masks in Modern Drama. Susan H.. Smith. Susan Harris. Smith. John. Chandler. Susan V.. Smith. 1 January 1984. University of California Press. 9780520050952 . Google Books.
  8. Web site: Fergus Bourke. 25 June 2014 .
  9. Web site: Working in the Archive on the Fergus Bourke Collection. blog.nli.ie.