The man Michael Healy-Rae wanted banned: Artist, critic and author Brian O'Doherty

Brian O'Doherty qualified as a medical doctor before becoming an art critic, an artist, a television presenter, a filmmaker, an author and an educator. Picture: Clare Keogh

Brian O’Doherty, who died in New York on November 11, aged 94, was a native of Ballaghdereen, Co. Roscommon, who found fame as an art critic, an artist, a television presenter, a filmmaker, an author and an educator. This all came after he first qualified as a medical doctor.

Born in 1928, O’Doherty studied medicine at UCD before progressing to postgraduate studies at Cambridge and Harvard School of Public Health, where he made an unlikely career change in 1957.