Editing Brian O'Doherty

{{Short description|Irish-American art critic, writer, visual artist, and academic(1928–2022)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Brian O'Doherty
| image            = 
| alt              = 
| caption          = 
| other_names      = Patrick Ireland
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1928|df=y|5|4}}
| birth_place      = [[Ballaghaderreen]], [[County Roscommon]], [[Connacht]], Ireland
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=y|2022|11|7|1928|5|4}}
| death_place      = New York City, U.S.
| spouse           = [[Barbara Novak]]
| field            = 
| training         = 
| movement         = 
| works            = 
| patrons          = 
| awards           = 
| elected          = 
| website          = 
| signature        = 
}}

'''Brian O'Doherty''' (4 May 1928 – 7 November 2022) was an Irish-American [[art critic]], writer, visual artist, and academic. He lived in [[New York City]] for over 50 years,<ref name=ciaran/> serving as an art critic for ''[[The New York Times]]'' and [[NBC]], as well as an editor for ''[[Art in America]]''.<ref name=Greenberger>{{cite news|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/brian-odoherty-dead-1234645947/|author=Alex Greenberger|date=November 8, 2022|title=Brian O’Doherty, Sly Artist and Critic Who Wore Many Hats, Dies at 94|work=ARTNews}}</ref> He used a number of [[alter ego]]s, including '''Patrick Ireland'''.<ref name=Greenberger/>

==Early life and education==
O'Doherty was born at [[Ballaghaderreen]] in [[County Roscommon]] in 1928, and grew up in [[Dublin]].<ref name=ciaran>Ciarán Benson (2011). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110603124735/http://www.drb.ie/more_details/11-03-17/No_Sad_Imperialist_of_the_Aesthetic_Self.aspx No sad imperialist of the aesthetic self]. ''The Dublin Review of Books'' '''17''' (Spring 2011). Archived 3 June 2014.</ref> He studied medicine at [[University College Dublin]], and did post-graduate work at [[Cambridge University]] and at the [[Harvard School of Public Health]].<ref name=liu>[s.n.] (1 June 1997). [http://www.liunet.edu/About/News/Univ-Ctr-PR/Pre-2008/June/UC_PR_004 Brian O'Doherty: University Professor of Fine Arts and Media Southampton College of Long Island University]. Long Island University. Accessed January 2014.</ref>

In 1957, O'Doherty spent a year working in a cancer hospital before devoting himself full-time to the visual arts. Speaking of his experience after Harvard:

{{blockquote|I first spent a year at Harvard when I came in 1957, doing all kinds of research. I got an MSc there, but I didn’t learn much. I switched from all things medical. I auditioned for a job as a television presenter at the Museum of Fine Arts from the Boston public television station, WGBH—TV. I would do a half-hour each week from the galleries on the museum collections, also interviews with artists – [[Marc Chagall]], [[Jacques Lipchitz]], [[Josef Albers]], [[Walter Gropius]], among others.<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Phong|last=Bui|title= In Conversation: Brian O'Doherty with Phong Bui|magazine= [[Brooklyn Rail]]|date= June 2007|url=http://brooklynrail.org/2007/06/art/doughtery}}</ref>}}

==Career==
In the 1960s, O'Doherty was an art critic for the ''New York Times.'' He commissioned [[Roland Barthes]] to write his "Death of the Author" essay for a special edition of ''Aspen'' magazine in 1967.<ref name=F/> He was also an editor of ''[[Art in America]]'' and an on-air art critic for [[NBC]].<ref name=Greenberger/>

In his mid-career,<ref name=F/> O'Doherty began signing his work under the name "Patrick Ireland" in reaction to the [[Bloody Sunday (1972)|Bloody Sunday]] killings in [[Derry]] in 1972. 
For many years, O'Doherty was an influential member of the senior staff of the [[National Endowment for the Arts]]; first as director of the Visual Arts Program, and subsequently as director of the Media Arts Program, where he was responsible for the creation of such major public television series as ''[[American Masters]]'' and ''[[Great Performances]]''.

He authored numerous works of art criticism, including his books ''American Masters'' (1973) and ''Inside the White Cube:  The Ideology of the Gallery Space'' (1976), a series of essays first published in ''Artforum''.<ref name=F>{{cite news|title=Public Spectacle: Mark Godfrey and Rosie Bennett Talk to Brian O'Doherty|publisher=Frieze|p=56|date=<!-- Jan/Feb/ --> 2004}}</ref> In the latter book, he discusses and invents{{citation needed|date=June 2014}} the term for the contemporary gallery space. He also wrote novels: ''The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P.'' (1992), the 2000 [[Booker Prize]]-nominated ''The Deposition of Father McGreevy'' (1999), and ''The Crossdresser's Secret'' (2014). He had a [[retrospective]] at Dublin's Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 2005.<ref name=F/>

In 1975, after a visit to the home of [[Beverly Pepper]] in [[Todi]], Italy, O'Doherty and his wife bought a vacation home in the town, and painted the plastered interior walls in vibrant colors. The house is now open for tours and is known as the [[Casa Dipinta of Todi]].<ref>[https://www.visitodi.eu/it/scopri/art/poi.html?id=26230:la-casa-dipinta Casa Dipinta of Todi], in Visitodi website.</ref>

On 20 May 2008, in recognition of the progress for peace in Ireland, O'Doherty ceremoniously buried his alter ego at the [[Irish Museum of Modern Art]] in Dublin, and resumed being called by his birth name.<ref name=ARTINFO>{{citation | title= Irish Artist to "Bury" Alter Ego | publisher=ARTINFO  | date= 6 May 2008 | url= http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27521/irish-artist-to-bury-alter-ego/| accessdate=14 May 2008 }}</ref><ref name=Kimmelman>{{citation |last=Kimmelman|first=Michael|title=Patrick Ireland, 36, Dies; Created to Serve Peace|accessdate=22 May 2008|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=22 May 2005|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/arts/design/22patr.html}}</ref>

In 2018, at the age of 90, O’Doherty was the subject of three exhibitions celebrating his work in his native Ireland, including the restoration of the room sized “One Here Now” installation he created at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cork in 1995-96.<ref name=Wilkinson>{{citation |last=Wilkinson |first=Judith|  title= "I Am Now a Saint": Brian O’Doherty Turns 90 | publisher=Frieze | date= 10 May 2018 | url= https://frieze.com/article/i-am-now-saint-brian-odoherty-turns-90 | accessdate=24 April 2019 }}</ref>

In ''The modern art collection, Trinity College Dublin'', David Scott writes that:

<blockquote>Much influenced by [[Marcel Duchamp]] he is an essentially interrogative artist, constantly questioning artistic conventions and the assumptions on which we base our aesthetic judgements.</blockquote>

==Personal life and death==
For more than 30 years, O'Doherty was married to [[art historian]] and former chair of the Art History department at [[Barnard College]], [[Barbara Novak]]. He lived and worked in the United States.

O'Doherty died at his home in New York on 7 November 2022, at the age of 94.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Greenberger |first=Alex |date=8 November 2022 |title=Brian O’Doherty, Sly Artist and Critic Who Wore Many Hats, Dies at 94 |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/brian-odoherty-dead-1234645947/ |access-date=8 November 2022 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Brenda Moore-McCann, "Brian O'Doherty/Patrick Ireland: Between Categories," Lund Humphries, London, 2009.
* Brian O'Doherty, ''Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space'', (1976), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999
* Brian O'Doherty, ''[http://www.macba.cat/uploads/20091202/lecture7_whitecube_eng.pdf Beyond the Ideology of the White Cube]''. MACBA: Barcelona, 2009.
* David Scott (1989), ''The modern art collection, Trinity College Dublin''. Dublin: Trinity College Dublin Press. {{ISBN|1-871408-01-6}}

==External links==
* [http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/structuralPlay.html O'Doherty's Structural Play #3 in Aspen no. 5+6] at Ubuweb

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Odoherty, Brian}}
[[Category:1928 births]]
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[[Category:20th-century Irish painters]]
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[[Category:21st-century Irish male artists]]
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[[Category:Irish sculptors]]
[[Category:People from Ballaghaderreen]]
[[Category:20th-century sculptors]]
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[[Category:Irish expatriates in the United States]]
[[Category:Alumni of University College Dublin]]
[[Category:Irish art critics]]
[[Category:The New York Times journalists]]
[[Category:Art in America editors]]
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[[Category:Writers from County Roscommon]]
[[Category:Irish male sculptors]]