John Behan
1938
John Behan was born in Dublin 1938. He trained in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ealing Art College in London and the Royal Academy School in Oslo. He has been a major part of the development of the sculpture in Ireland over the past fifty years and is a member of the RHA.
Behan was a founder member of both the New Artists group in 1962 and Dublin’s innovative Project Art Centre in Dublin in 1967 and also co-founded the Dublin Art Foundry in 1970. He has been awarded many honours over the years and became a Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1990, having been an Associate of the Academy since 1973. He is also a member of Aosdána. Behan was appointed to the Arts Council of Ireland from 1973 to 1978 and was conferred an honorary Doctor of Literature by NUI Galway in 2000, the same day his large commissioned sculpture Twin Spires was unveiled at the university campus.