EXHIBITION

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

Photographs by John Minihan

Through December 2008

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

Presented in association with the Aisling Irish Community Center, Society of Commodore John Barry USN Irish Center, Irish American Cultural Institute, Irish American Society of Nassau, Suffolk and Queens

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 Irish history. Photographed over two weeks this spring in
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 greatest generation.

"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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