Power O'Malley
Michael Augustine Power was born in Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland on 14 January 1871 to Michael Power and Bridget Hannigan. Upon the death of his father, his mother married Dennis O'Malley and the family moved to Dublin where he reportedly studied at The Metropolitan School of Art. He took the name O'Malley in honour of his much loved stepfather.
Emigrating to New York at the turn of the century he did book illustrations plus covers for Life, The Literary Digest, Harper's and Puck. He traveled to the west coast where he advised John Ford on film settings and reportedly painted sets for Cecil B. de Mille's epic King of Kings. In 1904 he married Ruth Yeaton Stuart, the daughter of an Alexandria, Virginia judge. The couple likely went to France where he continued his study of art. They also resided in Bermuda and, after twenty-three years, the marriage ended in divorce.
He made regular painting trips back to Ireland - most notably to Achill Island in County Mayo. His first exhibition was held in 1913 at the Gaelic League Hall on Rutland Square, Dublin. Other exhibit locales included New York City, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, San Antonio, London (Beaux Arts Gallery) and the Crawford in Cork (1940).
He was listed as a member of the advisory board of editors of the short lived Irish Review (1934) which included George Lennon of Dungarvan, former commanding officer of the West Waterford IRA Flying Column (1919-1921) as business manager. Also, at this time, either in Taos, New Mexico or New York City, he most likely met "IRA intellectual" and author (On Another Man's Wound and The Singing Flame) Ernie O'Malley.
After an illness of two years he died in New York City in 1946.
Largely through the efforts of his granddaughter, Marietta Whittlesey, a 2002 -2003 exhibit of his paintings was held at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York . Peter Murray, Curator of the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery in Cork remarked that "in many ways, Power O'Malley is one of the forgotten artists of Ireland in the twentieth century...The capacity of Ireland so easily to forget those who have emigrated is perhaps unsurprising in a country that saw millions emigrate to the United States in the nineteenth century, only to witness a similar, if less desperate, mass exodus in the twentieth...."
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