Rowan Gillespie: Famine 2025, in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières

In 2025, sculptor Rowan Gillespie was prompted to revisit his Iconic Famine Series (1997) in response to the distressing humanitarian catastrophes currently ravaging Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan and in other countries across the world.  Proceeds from the sale of the bronze sculptures will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders who are the leading global charity for disaster relief.  Scroll down for more information on MSF.

Rowan intends on casting new maquettes of all six of the original Famine figures and the dog.  Here are the first two in the series, with the remainder coming on stream over the coming months.  Please contact us if you are interested in any of the other figures. 

‘Famine’ (1997) was commissioned by Norma Smurfit and presented to the City of Dublin in 1997. The sculpture is a commemorative work dedicated to those Irish people forced to emigrate during the 19th century Irish Famine. The bronze sculptures were designed and crafted by Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie and are located on Custom House Quay in Dublin’s Docklands.

This location is a particularly appropriate and historic as one of the first voyages of the Famine period was on the ‘Perserverance’ which sailed from Custom House Quay on St. Patrick’s Day 1846.  Captain William Scott, a native of the Shetland Isles and a veteran of the Atlantic crossing, gave up his office job in New Brunswick to take the ‘Perserverance’ out of Dublin.  He was 74 years old. The Steerage fare on the ship was £3 and 210 passengers made the historical journey. They landed in New York on the 18th May 1846. All passengers and crew survived the journey.

In June 2007, a second series of famine sculptures by Rowan Gillespie, was unveiled by President Mary McAleese on the quayside in Toronto’s Ireland Park to remember the arrival of these refugees in Canada.

Rowan Gillespie was born in Dublin in 1953. His family emigrated to Cyprus when he was 3 months old and stayed there until 1963 when they were evacuated. He attended a Quaker school in York and left at the early age of 16 to enrol at York School of Art. He continued his studies in the sculpture department of Kingston College of Art, and briefly at Kunst og Design Skole in Oslo. He lived, married, and exhibited widely in Norway until 1977 when the family moved to Dublin where he set up his own one-man foundry. He lives and works there to this day.

From 1978 to 1986, he held many successful exhibitions in Ireland, at the Lad Lane and Solomon Galleries, in Holland with Galeri Husstege, and internationally, with the Jonathon Poole Gallery, London bringing his work to New York, Cannes, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Cape Town, and Moscow. He regularly exhibited in international group exhibitions including Rencontre avec des Sculpteurs Européens, Pan Amsterdam, Art Expo New York, Art Toronto, Puck Inaugural New York, BCAF Bath, ICAF London, and Art Miami.

In 1989, he decided to concentrate solely on site-specific work, which resulted in a number of major public sculpture commissions, initially in Ireland then around the world. He has not yet returned to exhibition work.

Possibly his best-known work would be his Migrant series, commemorative sculptures on Custom House Quay in Dublin, Ireland Park in Toronto, and Hobart, Tasmania.

Proclamation in Dublin, a personal tribute to his grandfather James Creed Meredith, commemorates those who were executed in Kilmainham Jail in 1916. Titanica remembers those who died on the Titanic.

Dagger John in Manhattan, Johnny Kilbane in Cleveland, James Joyce in Denver and Dublin, and William Orpen are among his Irish Greats, telling a story of staggering success in a lifetime. The female sculptures include convict women sent to Tasmania in Footsteps and From the Shadows, Mary Wollstonecraft, Rosalind Franklin, and the series A Woman. His late Norwegian wife of 48 years is commemorated in a Dublin sculpture, Ciao Bella.

Rowan Gillespie is unique as a sculptor in that he works totally alone, in his Dublin one-man foundry, and personally carries out every aspect of the work from conception to installation.