The sculptor, playwright and poet, James McKenna, has died at his home in Kildare. He was 67. One of the foremost Irish figurative sculptors of the 20th century, he is best known for several public and private commissions, including his large limestone monument Resurgence at the University of Limerick and Fe- male Figure and Tree at the Central Bank in Sandyford.
The chairman of the Arts Council, Mr Patrick Murphy, described him as "one of the most talented artists of his generation . . . a Renaissance man in the true sense".
McKenna was born in Dublin and grew up in Co Wicklow. From Bray Technical School he went to the National College of Art and Design, gaining a diploma in sculpture in 1955.
He quickly established himself as an energetic presence on the art scene in Dublin, exhibiting with the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. He was one of the founder members of the Independent Artists group. His play, The Scatterin', was a success at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1960. In the 1960s and 70s his Rising Ground Drama Group staged his stylised masked dramas at the Project Arts Centre. He was a fiercely idealistic critic of the Arts Council of the time. He believed in art as a progressive, egalitarian force and was an often combative outsider in terms of the artistic and political establishment.
He worked predominantly in stone and wood, and horses remained one of his favourite subjects.
