Having explored the city in his imagination, through the pages of James Joyce's Ulysses, the Magnum photographer, Erich Hartmann, arrived with his camera in Dublin for the first time in 1964.
He wandered through the city in search of the haunts mentioned in the course of Joyce's fictional June day 60 years before. The result was an evocative series of more than 3,000 images that recorded what Joyce had termed "The Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis", and which captures a Dublin era that has now vanished as completely as Joyce's city of 60 years earlier. More than 75 of these images, selected and printed by the photographer (two of which are shown right and below), form the exhibition Dublin 1964, which opens tomorrow in the Gallery of Photography, as part of the ReJoyce Bloomsday centenary sequence of events.
Hartmann (1922-1999), who was born in Munich and emigrated to the United States in 1938, joined Magnum in 1952. As a photojournalist, he travelled throughout the world on assignments for newspapers, magazines and corporate clients. His work was exhibited extensively in the US and Europe. His books include In the Camps (1995) and Where I Was, a book of personal photographs published in 2000, after his death.
Dublin 1964, in the Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin. Admission Free. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Sundays, 1-6 p.m. Closed Mondays.
Gerry Smyth
