Until December 2, the Raclin Murphy Museum presents an astonishing exhibition dedicated to Father Francis Browne. It is accompanied by this text.
Father Francis Browne—known to family and friends as Frank—lived a life of devotion and religious service. In his own time, he pursued photography as an avocation. His large and diverse oeuvre distinguishes him as a leading twentieth century Irish photographer. The youngest of eight children, Francis Mary Hegarty Browne (1880–1960) was born in Cork, where his father was a flour merchant. His mother, the niece of William Hegarty, Lord Mayor of Cork, died when he was an infant, and he was nurtured by his educated and devout family. When his father died accidentally in 1898, the teenager became a ward of his uncle, Father Robert Browne (1844–1935), the President of Saint Patrick’s College Maynooth, who would become Bishop of Cloyne in 1894. He guided his young nephew’s education and religious life and sometimes indulged him. The Bishop financed Frank’s graduation trip to Europe in 1897 and gave him a camera to document the journey.
After his return, Browne joined the Society of Jesus and entered the novitiate at Saint Stanislaus College in Tullabeg, County Offaly. When he was a student at the Royal University in Dublin, he was a friend of James Joyce. After completing his bachelor’s degree in 1902, Browne progressed to the Philosophate course of Jesuit study at Chieri, near Turin. In Italy, he found opportunities to travel further and visit churches and art galleries. For his Regency, Browne taught boys in middle school at Belvedere College in Dublin. He ran the academy cycling club and founded a camera club. After three years, he moved across the city for Theology at Milltown Park, Ranelagh. Airplanes, trains, and steamships fascinated the young man. In April 1912, Bishop Browne arranged a first-class ticket for him on the first leg of the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Frank sailed from Southampton in England to Cherbourg, France, and then to Queensland (Cobh) in Ireland. He disembarked at home before the liner sailed to its disastrous sinking in the North Atlantic. After the tragedy, some of Browne’s photographs of the ship, her passengers, and crew appeared in newspapers worldwide, launching his career as a photographer.
In July 1915, Browne was ordained to the priesthood and became a chaplain in the Irish Guards. He was allowed to carry his camera throughout World War I while serving in France and Flanders. Often on the front lines, Father Browne ministered to the wounded and the dead and became known for his bravery. When he returned to Ireland after the war, Father Browne had yet to complete his Jesuit training. Browne returned to Tullabeg for his postponed third year—Tertianship—and took his final vows as a Jesuit on February 2, 1921. Some months later, he became Superior of Saint Francis Xavier’s Church on Gardiner Street in Dublin. In this position, he managed the Jesuits of the parish and served as building superintendent. But soon, he suffered respiratory illness caused by breathing gas on the battlefield. The Irish Provincialate sent Browne to Australia to work, and to recuperate in a warm, dry climate. He photographed his journey to the other side of the world and back.
Father Browne returned to Saint Francis Xavier late in 1925. Now robust, he devoted more time to photography. He explored Dublin with his camera and made photographic expeditions around Ireland by train and bicycle. A member of the Photography Society of Ireland and the Dublin Camera Club, he contributed to their exhibitions. In 1928, Father Browne joined the Mission and Retreat Staff, first at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare and then at Emo Court in County Laois. He traveled to parishes across Ireland to preach and to lead closed retreats, his camera always close at hand. On a visit to the Kodak Works at Harrow in 1933, he befriended its director, George Davison. This veteran aesthetic photographer arranged for Father Browne to receive free Kodak film for his use for his lifetime. In return, his images often appeared in The Kodak Magazine. He continued to photograph until his health declined in 1957. This selection of photographs represents some of Father Browne’s early adventures, as well as the joys and reflections of maturity. It reveals not only his perceptive, complex personality but also his passion for the people and traditions of Ireland.
The photographs in this exhibition were printed expressly for the University of Notre Dame and are part of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art permanent collection. Father Browne was a Jesuit priest who made photographs chiefly for his own interest. Not to be sold, they were seldom printed. He did undertake a handful of commissioned projects and some of his images appeared in newspapers and magazines. The earnings from these projects were sent to the Jesuits’ Provincial Treasurer, eventually comprising a fund to assist Jesuit students, which the photographer called the “Brownie Burses.”
Though Father Browne printed few photographs, he maintained a darkroom to develop his negatives, which he carefully preserved. Twenty-five years after his death, a trunk was discovered at the Jesuit Provincial Archives in Dublin containing some 42,000 of them. Organized in small albums, most of the negatives were on a nitrate film base, outmoded and dangerously flammable. The Provincial office consulted the Dublin architectural photographer and photographic conservator David Davison. He and his son Edwin transferred the negatives to stable cellulose acetate film stock and organized the images in a digital catalogue. The prints in this exhibition were made by Edwin Davison. They comprise the most extensive collection in the United States of the work of Father Browne.
Through the Lens of Father Francis Browne, S.J.: Photographic Adventures of an Irish Priest
Until December 1, 2024
Raclin Murphy Museum
100 Raclin Murphy Museum
Notre Dame, IN 46556
https://raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu/
