Hilary Heron: A Retrospective
16 November 2024 to 15 February 2025

The F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council are delighted to present Hilary Heron: A Retrospective. Hilary Heron (1923–1977), was born in Dublin to x and Mary Heron (nee Collen) who were both from Portadown. She studied sculpture at the National College of Art, where she won the prestigious Taylor Art Scholarship Prize three years running in 1944, 1945 and 1946. With it she bought a motorbike and travelled throughout Europe and to Paris, where Samuel Beckett introduced her to key post-war artists and writers that influenced her thinking and production. She was represented by Ireland’s most important commercial gallery, the Waddington Galleries, and her international visibility was reinforced when she was selected to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1956 alongside Louis le Brocquy.

The exhibition is arranged in seven themes each articulating a different aspect of Heron’s work. It begins with Early work and then follows the thematics of: Venice Biennale, Flight, Primitivism, the Male body, and the Female body. The displays are comprised of works which articulate the full breadth of Heron’s sculptural practice: of wood carving, stone carving, welding in different metals, lead reliefs, beaten metal reliefs, encased stone assemblages; as well as her graphic practices of drawing and etching. The exhibition highlights how Heron navigated a career in a field dominated by men. Contemporary writers were united in their acclaim of her work, Anna Sheehy hailed Heron as ‘Ireland’s Most Promising Sculptor’. Despite her success during her life, her work was largely forgotten after her death due to historical biases and the art market’s lower value on women’s work. A collaboration with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, this exhibition aims to introduce Heron’s work to contemporary audiences and ensure that she takes her place in the canon of Irish art history.