"Never Out of Fashion"

“I’ve seen the future, and I’m not going.”

– David McDermott

After meeting David McDermott and taking his photograph, I didn't think of him again until I posted his picture to my blog. So I decided to do some research and see if anyone else in Dublin had noticed him and taken the time to document his eccentric style. What I found astonished and delighted me!...David McDermott is a Surrealit artist of worldwide renown along with Peter McGough!

McDermott & McGough are contemporary artists known for their work in painting, photography, sculpture and film. They currently split their time between Dublin and New York City. They are best known for using alternative historical processes in their photography, including the techniques of cyanotype, gum bichromate, salt, tri color carbo, platinum and palladium. Among the subjects they approach are popular art and culture, religion, medicine, advertising, time, fashion and sexual behavior.

They have since become well known for their way of blending art and daily life. Their photography involves appropriating images and objects from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century, and they project an image of themselves as gentlemen, posing as erudite, impertinent characters. In this way they have chosen to immerse themselves in the period of the Victorian era at the close of the 19th century to the style of the 1930s. During the 1980s, McDermott & McGough dressed, lived, and worked as artists and “men about town,” circa 1900-1928: they wore top hats and detachable collars, and converted a townhouse on Avenue C in New York City’s East Village, which was lit only by candlelight, to its authentic mid-19th century ideal.