Brian O’Doherty was born in Ireland and moved to New York in 1957. A qualified medical doctor, O’Doherty became renowned as an artist, writer, television host, and educator. Consistently exploring the multiple nature of identity, he adopted various personae, notably 'Patrick Ireland', who was buried at IMMA in 2008. Major retrospectives of O’Doherty/Ireland’s work were held at the National Museum of American Art, Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane and the Grey Art Gallery, New York. Brian O'Doherty died at his apartment in Manhattan on Monday 7th of November 2022, at the age of 94.

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During the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1972, Brian O'Doherty, in a performance before 30 invited witnesses and assisted by artists Robert Ballagh and Brian King, undertook to sign his artworks Patrick Ireland 'until such time as the British military presence is removed from Northern Ireland'. After 36 years of making art as Patrick Ireland, O'Doherty reclaimed his birth name with the symbolic burial of his alter ego in the grounds of IMMA on the afternoon of Tuesday 20 May 2008. View Artist