Fergus Bourke
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]
Fergus Bourke | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 31, 1934 |
| Died | October 8, 2004 (aged 70) 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 |
| Spouse |
Maureen O'Connor (m. 1963) |
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
Each picture was a deceptively simple evocation of a street happening or incident captured in a fraction of a second, within the borders of the classical golden mean rectangle, a rigorous organisation of the elements of the subject matter, a magical coming together of the relevant units, freezing a moment of life that as a statement would exist entirely for its own sake. Is such photography an art form? Yes, I say, when it's in the hands of an artist. Seeing these pictures revealed to me in an instant that the camera could be an instrument of artistic expression. There had been a photographer trapped inside me for so many years and suddenly this book, in one glorious moment of awakening, opened the door. It was a culture shock, but a very pleasant one, like hearing the music of Chopin for the first time. A good black and white print is like music, it has the power to excite you.
Fergus Bourke, on encountering the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson[2]
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]
References
- "Aosdána". aosdana.artscouncil.ie.
- "Master of photography who filmed with the eyes of a child". The Irish Times.
- O'Donohue, John; Quinn, John (6 November 2018). Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 9780525575290 – via Google Books.
- "Bourke, Fergus (Ignatius) | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie.
- "Fergus Bourke | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
- "A life in search of wonder and beauty". The Irish Times.
- Smith, Susan H.; Smith, Susan Harris; Chandler, John; Smith, Susan V. (1 January 1984). Masks in Modern Drama. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520050952 – via Google Books.
- "Fergus Bourke".
- "Working in the Archive on the Fergus Bourke Collection". blog.nli.ie.