[From the Community Collection, a public trust in Agincourt, Iowa]

TIERNEY, Seamus [1933–2011]

“Templehof Hafen” 

watercolor on paper / 3.5 inches by 5.5 inches

1953

Seamus Tierney is known in the community primarily as a theatre director and playwright. But his local career was interrupted by service in the U.S. Army. Stationed at various bases in West Germany during the 1950s, Tierney became part of an airlift to Berlin during its life as a divided city. He had time to make several quick studies of the city, in this case the harbor near Templehof Airport. Inscribed on the reverse in Tierney’s handwriting is a fuller explanation in German: “Industrieanlagen im Hafen vom alten West-Berlin, im Hintergrund das Ullstein-Haus in Tempelhof.” [Industrial plants in the port of old West Berlin, in the background the Ullstein House in Tempelhof.] Since Tierney worked as an artist in woodcut, he probably intended this as a study for the more tedious process of carving the woodblock.