John Burke; Irish sculptor
Hyfler/Rosner
December 23, 2006 Saturday
Influential Irish sculptor and dedicated teacher of art
John Burke: The sculptor John Burke, who has died aged 60,
was best known for his large-scale steel sculptures, and was
highly regarded as a creator and maker of public art. His
early work used found objects such as farm machinery.
This soon developed into sculpture that evolved directly
from raw sheet-steel, juxtaposing simple geometric shapes in
the abstract formalist tradition. He generally painted his
sculptures with one colour to soften the often violent
angularism. He was a strong advocate of craft as opposed to
theory as a means to produce art. He considered a sound
working knowledge of material and technique to be an
essential tool that had to be rigorously adhered to in the
pursuit of fluent creativity.
Mary Cloake, director of the Arts Council, last week said,
"John Burke was a skilled and innovative sculptor who
brought life and beauty to his work." As a founder member of
Aosdána, she said, "he was instrumental in creating the
structures that have served artists so well in the
intervening years and was also a gifted and dedicated
teacher".
The critic Hilary Pyle in 1973 wrote, "Just as a sense of
space is an essential component of his art, on whatever
scale he works, a feeling of ease and fluidity is common to
all of John Burke's sculpture. Every image is in constant
movement."Born in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, in 1946, he took
night classes in drawing and painting as a schoolboy. He
began attending the Crawford School of Art, Cork, in 1964,
but soon found himself disillusioned with the quality of
education on offer. He complained of "remoteness, lack of
courses".
He was drawn to sculpture, attending night classes at
technical school to learn welding, and began working with
scrap metal.He was influenced by the cubists and by British
and American sculptors, in particular by David Smith.
After three years studying - mostly on his own - in Cork, he
won the Macaulay Fellowship and went to London. There he
worked in the studio of the Manx-born sculptor, Bryan
Kneale, for three days a week.He spent another two days in
the life-drawing room at the Royal Academy.
He then travelled for a year, in North Africa and the Greek
Islands, and returned to Ireland by way of Italy and
Holland - completing a journey that retraced much of the
history of western art.
He set up a studio and workshop in a converted stable in
Blarney, near Cork city. Living in a mobile home, he
supported himself by teaching two days a week at the
Crawford School of Art. There he was an acknowledged
influence on such artists as Éilis O'Connell, Vivienne
Roche, Maud Cotter, James Scanlon and John Gibbons. He
ceased teaching in the late 1970s in order to work full-time
as a sculptor.
His work was shown in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, as
well as at international events such as Artists 77, New York
(1977); 18 European Sculptors, Munich (1978); Sculpture
Européene, Brussels (1979); A Sense of Ireland, London
(1980); and CAN, Cork (1985), where he won the sculpture
prize.
Known for his strongly individualistic nature, he asked to
be buried in a standing position on a height in Co Cork but
within view of his native Co Tipperary. Accordingly, he was
buried in a standing position at Árd na Gaoithe cemetery,
Watergrasshill, with a view of the Knockmealdowns and the
Galtee mountains.
His daughter Eve survives him.John Burke: born 1946; died
December 11th, 2006