TOURING EXHIBITIONS

The New England Chapter of To Love Two Countries,John Minihan’s evolving photographic tribute to the men and women who immigrated to the United States in the early half of the twentieth century, opened at the Massachusetts Sate House in Boston, in November. Stay tuned to www.irishartscenter.org for the upcoming launch of the online version of this moving tribute to "Ireland’s greatest generation in America”.

To Love Two Countries:
Ireland's Greatest Generation in America

Photographs by John Minihan

Commissioned and presented by the Irish Arts Center and the Consulate of Ireland

We are thrilled to announce that we are once again collaborating with photographer John Minihan to expand our acclaimed To Love Two Countries exhibit to New England. This moving tribute to the Irish who came to the United States in the early twentieth century will again be presented in partnership with leading community organizations, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Consulate of Ireland in Boston.

John Minihan’s photographs of such luminaries as Samuel Beckett, Edna O’Brien, Gloria Swanson, Ray Charles, Al Pacino, and Diana Spencer have established him as one of the finest portrait photographers of his generation. The subjects in To Love Two Countries are real people – untouched by “celebrity” – who emigrated from Ireland to America in the early decades of the twentieth century. They stand at the end of a line receding into 400 years of New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, Minihan visited his subjects in their homes, in their church, and in their local Irish centers.

John Minihan’s portraits of Samuel Beckett have become a part of the way we remember Beckett. The portraits in this exhibition will help define how we remember this – our

"John Minihan’s famous pictures of the famous — Samuel Beckett, Edna O’Brien, Gloria Swanson, Ray Charles, Al Pacino, Diana Spencer, the list is endless — have established him as one of the finest portrait photographers of his generation.  These American photographs, taken in the course of two weeks in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, are concerned with real people untouched by 'celebrity.'" --from Derek Mahon’s forward to the companion book To Love Two Countries: Ireland’s Greatest Generation in America, published in July 2008 by the Irish Arts Center. 

To Love Two Countries was developed with generous support from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland, and Ambassador Niall Burgess, Consul General of Ireland.

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