Seamus Murphy’s ‘Dreamline’ sculpture is lovingly restored

AN important work of stone art by one of 20th century Ireland’s greatest sculptors, has been lovingly restored to its original form and it set to return to public display in the Cork Public Museum.

Conservationist Eoghan Dalton said it was “both a pleasure and an honour” to restore Seamus Murphy’s sublime piece, ‘Dreamline’, in Cork Public Museum last week.

“Murphy was, beyond any doubt, Ireland’s most important sculptor of the 20th century,” Mr Dalton said.

‘Dreamline’ was placed in Fitzgerald’s Park by the museum authorities in 1977, having been carved by Mr Murphy in the late 1930s.

Over the years, the piece became weathered and degraded from the elements.

In January, Daniel Breen of Cork Public Museum took the decision to remove it from its exterior location and have it restored in the museum by Mr Dalton.

“We brought it into the museum and the plan is to put it on display there,” Mr Dalton said. “It had deteriorated substantially. Some of the back side, which was exposed to the weather, is heavily pitted, and there were fractures starting to appear in parts of the piece.”

Special conservation chemicals were used in the painstaking restoration process, which was finished completely by hand.

“There were quite a lot of cement splatters on it. We chipped those away and removed those with a scalpel as well,” Mr Dalton said. “It’s a particularly evocative piece. Everybody who sees it reacts emotionally to it.”

Born in Greenhills, Burnfort, Co Cork, in 1907, Seamus Murphy trained in Paris at a time when his work was underappreciated here, said Mr Dalton.

Mr Murphy learned to carve stone in Blackpool, Cork city, authored a book, Stone Mad, and famously designed the Church of the Annunciation in Blackpool. He died in 1975.

Stone Mad is a “modern literary classic” according to Mr Dalton.

“For the Ireland of the day, which was a hugely conservative place, he would have been far ahead in terms of artistic tastes. He spent his whole life completely underappreciated. Ireland wasn’t able to see how great a sculptor he was,” Mr Dalton said.

‘Dreamline’ is carved from Portland limestone, imported from England — a soft stone that doesn’t stand up to the Irish elements very well, added Mr Dalton.