Exhibitions

2025 – Marc Brandel and Naomi Brandel

Marc Brandel (originally Marcus Beresford) was born in London in 1919 and grew up in a very literary environment as his father was a prolific and successful Edwardian writer who was close friends with the likes of DH Lawrence, HG Wells, Walter De La Mere. Marc spent much of his adulthood in the US where he wrote many novels including The Choice (1950) and The Time of the Fire (1954, an allegory about McCarthyism) and was friends with many American artists and writers of the time including James Baldwin and Gore Vidal. He became a screenwriter and in 1961 while working as one of the many writers on Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra, he met Naomi Glaister Primrose through a mutual friend.
Naomi Primrose was born in Glasgow and grew up in London. She used her creative flair to create a beautiful home from the ruin the couple bought in Cappaghglass in 1962 and began painting the Cappaghglass landscape in acrylics. Naomi studied sculpture and painting with John Erland (from the Slade), and with the support of many local West Cork potters and ceramicist especially Pat Connor, Naomi began to develop her ceramic sculptures. Her ceramic work was exhibited at the RDS (where she was awarded distinctions in 1977 and 1978) and she had her first solo exhibition at the Cork Craftsman’s Guild in 1979. She also wrote a novel, After Trelawny, which was published in 2008.
With the breakup of Naomi and Marc’s relationship in 1978, he moved back to Los Angeles where he died in 1994. Naomi, Tara and Shaena moved to England in 1982 when Naomi trained as an art therapist. She returned to live in West Cork in 1994 and continued to work on her sculptures and paintings influenced by art therapy and observations she made of the flora around her. She currently lives in England with her husband.

2024 – Susan O’Toole and the Ballydehob Mermaids.

 (Gulgielmo Marconi at Brow Head)

Susan is best known in Ballydehob for carving two huge Mermaids twenty years apart to repose on an island in the estuary below the 12 Arch Bridge. The exhibition will tell the stories of the Mermaids as well as displaying carved heads and smaller pieces plus paintings drawings and photographs of her life and work.

Maps giving details of where to see Susan’s public works in Ballydehob, Lowertown, Goleen and Crookhaven will be available. 

2023 – Brushfire Ceramics with John and Noelle Verling

2020 – Ian and Lynn Wright

2019 – Ballydehob on Bahnofstrasse / The Irish Tea Ceremony

Ballydehob on Bahnhofstrasse tells the story of a group of twelve artists from the Ballydehob community who travelled to Zurich in 1985 to exhibit their work to a wider audience. Brian Lalor has assembled photographs, posters, catalogues and examples of the work of some of these artists.

An offbeat part of this story – hitherto untold – reveals that in order to gain publicity in the city and bring people in to see the works, some of the artists took part in a bizarre street performance that involved sculpture, music, song – and the unveiling of a specially created character: Jack O’Metti!

The Irish Tea Ceremony – a new way to look at the work of the Ballydehob potters and craft producers, with examples from the Museum’s permanent collection.

…If the Japanese Tea Ceremony is concerned with tradition, order, tea-drinking, ritualised artefacts and strictly observed spirituality and courtesy, allied to the passage of time, The Irish Tea Ceremony is concerned with hospitality, tea-drinking, food, conviviality, humour, abundance, and possibly much more that is primarily social… (Brian Lalor)

2018 – Bohemians in Ballydehob

In 2018 BAM began to collect works and, through donations and bequests, we have built up a modest pool of material from the period, enabling us to hold our first exhibition, ‘Bohemians in Ballydehob’ (see the exhibition brochure below). This was highly acclaimed and brought many visitors into the town.

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BAM is the only dedicated public collection of works from 20th century West Cork artists in the world. Our aim is to acquire, conserve and display as many high quality examples as possible. 

We need your help to find and acquire works – preferably donated – to consolidate the collection. Please use the contact form on this website to let us know of any works which might become available: paintings, prints, ceramics, posters, photographs, books – all are of interest.