The Artistic Legacy of Helen Hooker O'Malley: Capturing Ireland in Camera, Sculpture & Cloth

Please join members and friends of the Museum of Newport Irish History for the 3rd talk of its 24th Annual Lecture Series with Cormac K.H. O'Malley, whose lecture is titled: "The Artistic Legacy of Helen Hooker O'Malley (1905-1993): Capturing Ireland in Camera, Sculpture, Painting and Cloth" The lecture is made possible by a generous gift from Frances J. Furtado, given in memory of his wife, Barbara Carr Furtado The talk with Q&A to follow will be presented at 6:00 p.m. in-person at the Wyndham Newport Hotel and live-streamed via Zoom. To RESERVE to join us In-Person or via Zoom, please click the website link. -Doors open at 5:30 p.m. -Light hors d'oeuvres & cash bar available. - Reservations are required for both in-person and virtual participation. - $5 per person fee to attend in person (cash or check @ door). - Those who become members to attend this talk will have the $5 lecture fee waived. - There is no fee to participate via Zoom. Questions/Assistance with Reservations: Please write [email protected] or phone Ann at (401) 841-5493 TALK OVERVIEW: Helen Hooker O’Malley was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, and from an early age wanted to become an artist. She was a national junior tennis champion by age 18 but refused to go to college like her sisters. Instead, she persuaded her parents to allow her to study and then pursue art as a career, an unusual course for a young socialite lady in those days. She studied art in New York and Paris but was mostly self-taught. She traveled extensively throughout Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s, including living in St. Petersburg and Moscow and dancing in Athens. She carried her camera, drawing pencils, and watercolors, and used them constantly. Helen met Ernie O’Malley, the Irish militant nationalist and leader in the Irish War of Independence and Civil War,in Connecticut in 1933. She fell in love with him as she sculpted his head in 1934, and they moved to Ireland and married in 1935. She sculpted, painted, photographed, designed clothes, did interior decorating, founded the Irish Players Theatre, designed costumes and stage sets, made over 400 sculptures, mostly heads and figures of actors, dancers, musicians, composers, and athletes. She was a talented artist. A collection of her sculptures is permanently installed at the University of Limerick. Collections of her photographs are held at the National Library of Ireland and the Photo Museum Ireland in Dublin. Her photo archives are preserved at University College Cork. GUEST SPEAKER BIO: Cormac O'Malley is the son of Ernie and Helen Hooker O’Malley. He has been interested in Irish history since his college days. Since his retirement from an international corporate law practice, Cormac has worked to preserve his father’s literary and historical legacy as well as his mother’s artistic and cultural heritage by facilitating exhibits of her art collection, her own sculpture, photography, and theatre stage sets in Ireland and the USA, and by encouraging institutions to publish extensive catalogs about those exhibits. This year, two major exhibits of her works are at the University of Rochester and the University of Limerick. Cormac has also produced two documentary films about her work, which have been shown on Connecticut Public Television: A Call to Arts (2020) and Camera and Clay (2023). We welcome Cormac for this, his second talk to our membership. ABOUT THE MUSEUM The Museum of Newport Irish History, a volunteer-driven, non-profit 501c3 organization, was founded in 1996 and now boasts over 900 members. In addition to operating an Interpretive Center on Lower Thames Street, the organization sponsors numerous educational, cultural, social, and fundraising events throughout the year, including its popular Annual Lecture Series, now in its 24th season. The organization also restored and maintains the historic Barney Street Cemetery at the corner of Barney and Mt. Vernon Streets, steps from Washington Square. It is the final resting place of many of Newport’s earliest Irish residents. The cemetery was established to support Rhode Island’s first Roman Catholic parish, the forerunner of the current Saint Mary’s Church at the corner of Spring Street and Memorial Boulevard. To learn more or to join the Museum, please visit www.NewportIrishHistory.org or write us at [email protected]

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