Mary Healy - Art Historian

Mary Healy is an Art Historian at the Department of History, University of Limerick, Ireland, specialising in 19th-century French Orientalism with particular emphasis on French women Orientalist artists, both painters and sculptors, who travelled to areas of the Maghreb during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Healy’s research is strongly focused on the life and works of Marie Lucas Robiquet (1858-1959). Healy is also a practicing artist working through the mediums of traditional printmaking, painting and photography.
Born in Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland, in 1978, Healy gained her B.A. honours degree in Fine Art Printmaking from the Limerick School of Art and Design in Ireland in 2006. Her artistic practice focuses on the element of symbolism in iconic paintings while examining the rituals of the contemporary female through the mediums of photography, painting and traditional printmaking.
In 2004 she studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, France, where she trained under the printmaker Jean Michel Vaillant. Always holding her love of art historical theory, Healy perused her M.A. in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Limerick, Ireland, graduating in 2008. She is currently a PhD Research Scholar at the Department of History, University of Limerick, Ireland, under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Lawless. Healy is an active member of the Association of Art Historians, the Irish History Students Association, the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East and the Centre for Historical Research of University of Limerick & Mary Immaculate College.
Healy’s research explores the forgotten women Orientalist artists of 19th-century France with particular emphasise on the artist Marie Lucas Robiquet (1858-1959). From a period of ‘searching for’ and recording French 19th-century women Orientalist artists, Healy has come to source primary documentation on ninety-eight women artists, both practicing painters and sculptors, who traveled to areas of the Maghreb between 1880 and 1940. Healy argues that female artists evolve the ‘ism’ through their genre subject matter which was primarily focused on the Maghrebian female. The objective of Healy’s research is not only to answer ‘who were the women Orientalist artists of nineteenth-century France?’, but she also strives to explores what addition the female perspective had on, and will have on, French Orientalist depictions and theories.
Healy's presentations on Marie Lucas Robiquet and women artist-explorers in 19th-century French Orientalism:
The Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East Eighth Biennial Conference, Durham University, England, Friday 10-13 July 2009
Trinity College Dublin/University College Dublin Postgraduate History Conference, Dublin, 22-23 May 2009,
Centre for Historical Research and History Department University College Cork Postgraduate Forum Postgraduate Forum, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, 6 May 2009
Artefact: The Journal of the Irish Association of Art Historians 2009 Study Day, Newman House, St. Stephens Green, Dublin, 4 April 2009
The Irish History Students' Association Annual Conference, NUI Maynooth, 6 - 7 March 2009
Trinity College Dublin Lunchtime Symposium, 12 February 2009
Postcolonial Symposium, University of Stirling, 26 April 2008
National Gallery of Ireland Research Day, Dublin, 6 March 2008
Publications:
Edited by Yvonne Davis, researched by Mary Healy, The Water Colour Society of Ireland, UL, 2009
Mary Healy, ‘Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849): A Brief Synopsis of his Artistic Periods’, Orientalism and the Female Gaze: The Helen Hooker O’Malley Catalogue, UL, (November, 2007)
Mary Healy, ‘Theory on the Hokusai Nishiki-e Print Held at the University of Limerick and Part of the Irish American Cultural Institute’s Helen Hooker O’Malley Collection’, Orientalism and the Female Gaze: The Helen Hooker O’Malley Catalogue, UL, (November, 2007)
Mary Healy, ‘Contemporary Adaptations of Iconic Works’, Circa, (Winter, 2006), pp. 107-112

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