Imogen Stuart

Imogen Stuart (née Werner; born 1927) is a German-Irish sculptor. She is one of Ireland's best known sculptors with work in public and private collections throughout Europe and the U.S.. She was awarded the Mary McAuley medal in 2010 by President Mary McAleese, who paid tribute to her "genius", crafting "a canon of work that synthesises our complex past, present images and possible futures...as an intrinsic part of the narrative of modern Irish art, of Ireland." Life Born Imogen Werner in Berlin, she is the daughter of the art critic and author and his wife. She grew up in wartime Berlin, where she took up drawing and sculpting at a young age, encouraged by her father who played an important role in providing a forum for Bauhaus artists through his cultural magazine . After the war he served as Cultural Attache for the Federal Republic of Germany in Washington, DC. Imogen knew very little about her Jewish origins until after the war. In 1945 Stuart began studying under Otto Hitzberger, who taught her modelling, carving, and relief work using different materials. In 1948 she met her future husband, Irishman Ian Stuart there, who also studied with Hitzberger. He was a grandson of Maud Gonne. In 1949 the young couple moved to Ireland. They married in 1951 and took up residence in Laragh Castle near Glendalough.