123
Irish Women Artists 1870 - 1970
Summer 2014
110. Melanie le Brocquy HRHA (b.1919)
Head of a child (1942)
Bronze, 26.4cm high
Signed with artist’s device and numbered 6/6
Melanie Le Brocquy has exhibited work in several group exhibitions in Salz-
burg, 1962, Dublin at the Dawson gallery in 1973 and the Taylor Galleries in
1986 and 2000. Her work is represented in the collection of the Hugh Lane
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, the National Self Portrait Collection,
Limerick, the Arts Council of Ireland, the Corporation of Dublin and Allied Irish
Bank. In 2000 the RHA Gallagher Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of Le
Brocquy’s work.
Melanie Le Brocquy’s sculptures are often centred around the family; an infant
learns to walk, a young girl holds her mother’s hand, father and son stand close-
ly together. The relationship between figures is one of respect and tenderness.
They stand upright but are not stiff. Forms are reduced to a simple statement.
