Harry Kernoff

Life
1900-1974; illustrator; plates in anthologies edited by Devin A. Garrity, et al. ; lived at 13 Stamer St., Dubin 8, afterwards the home of John Behan (sculpt.); there is a life by Kevin O’Connors (Harry Kernoff The Little Genius); d. 25 Dec., 1974.

Note: Kernoff’s water-colour sketch, ‘A Bird Never Flew on One Wing, or Alcoholics Synonymous’ shows two drinkers, one a fat man and the other a thin one. The former was partly based on Davy Byrne, proprietor of the eponymous pub, and partly on Lord Mayor Alfie Byrne, a famously affable civic politician. The latter was based on a notiorious cadger known as “The Toucher Doyle” whose appearance is said to have inspired the features of Dr Spock in Star Trek in a well-testified story of its script-writerr’s inspiration in the Dublin pub where the picture was seen by him. (See Facebook post by Frank Callery, 21.02.2019).

Criticism incls. Brian Fallon, ‘the resurrection of Harry Kernoff: Brian Fallon members remembers a modest exhibition that began a love affair with the work of Harry Kernoff’, in Irish Arts Review (Winter 2022) - online; accessed 22.02.2023.)

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