Dublin days

In 1966, 'Harper's Bazaar' photographer EVELYN HOFERcaptured scenes of everyday life in Dublin – an upcoming exhibition offers a chance to recognise friends and family in pictures of a bygone Ireland

IRISH LIFE HAS changed irrevocably in 45 years, as you can see in the work of German-American portrait photographer Evelyn Hofer. The snapper worked as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar magazine in New York and in 1966 visited Dublin to capture scenes of everyday life. These pictures became a book that was part of a series of literary portraits of cities by Hofer, who collaborated with the author VS Pritchett, master of the short story and also an evocative travel writer.

Dublin: A Portrait, published in 1967, looks at Dublin’s past, its politics and people, its grand mansions and curious corners. These photographs form part of the exhibition of 40 shots, which opens in the Gallery of Photography on Meeting House Square in Dublin 2 on July 6th.

The carefully composed pictures are in black and white and colour. “The colour photographs are particularly beautiful,” says Tanya Kiang, director of the Gallery of Photography.

Kiang wants to find out who the Irish people in these pictures are. One photograph depicts a football team playing in the Phoenix Park, each member bedecked in a mauve hand-knit jersey, visibly frayed at the cuffs and with crests – presumably sewed lovingly by faithful Irish mammies. Another captures a small girl in the Coombe, astride a high nellie bicycle.

If you can identify anyone in the pictures tel: 01-671 4654 or see galleryofphotography.ie. The works are for sale, with prices starting at €3,500. Dublin and Other Portraits runs until August 31st and will be launched by Susanne Breidenbach, director of German Galerie M Bochum, who is credited with rediscovering Hofer and edited a monograph of the artist's work with art publisher Steidl