Imogen Stuart (née Werner; 1927 – 24 March 2024) was a German-Irish[3] sculptor, influenced by 19th-century Expressionism and early Irish Christian art.

During her long career, she became one of Ireland's best-known sculptors, with her work placed in both public spaces and private collections throughout Europe and the U.S. Born Imogen Werner in Berlin in 1927,[5] she was the daughter of Katharina (née Klug), a former art history student originally from Upper Silesia (now part of Poland), and the influential and internationally known art critic and writer Bruno E. Werner (1896–1964),[5][6] Germany's leading art critic and an editor for the Deutsche Allgemeine newspaper, who had championed the Bauhaus movement.

[9] By early 1945, when the Russian army was advancing towards Berlin, Imogen's "golden childhood came to an end" and both daughters were moved to a convent in Bavaria, while their father went into hiding from the Nazis.

[11] The couple first visited Ireland in 1949 and moved permanently there that year,[12] at first living in with his parents at Laragh Castle near Glendalough, County Wicklow, into what the writer Kate Robinson described as a family containing a "notable mixture of politics and literature".

[16] This led to the careers of a number of notable Irish visual artists, of whom one of the best known is the stained glass designer Harry Clarke (b.

[17][18] Stuart's work is informed by 19th century German expressionist sculptors such as Ernst Barlach, but in a sensibility also influenced by the later Romanesque and Gothic art periods.

[4][25] "Within the sharply defined limits of material, subject, space, size and money given, I learned to develop within myself a great freedom of expression.

[18] Her public sculptures include the monumental sculpture of Pope John Paul II in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth,[1][27] the 2005 Flame Of Human Dignity at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris,[28][1] Her 1969 Statue of Saint Brendan was created with Ian Stuart and is positioned in the town square in Bantry, County Cork.

She worked with architects, designers and metalsmiths throughout her career, including with Vicki Donovan, Phil O'Neill and Ciaran Byrne.

[31] She was elected Saoi ("wise one") by Aosdána in 2015 as the highest honour that can be bestowed by the state-supported association of Irish creative artists.

[32] In 2010 she was awarded the McAuley medal (named after Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy in 1831) by the Irish president Mary McAleese, who paid tribute to her "genius", crafting "a canon of work that synthesises our complex past, present images and possible futures...as an intrinsic part of the narrative of modern Irish art".

[28] The biography Imogen Stuart, Sculptor on her work and life was published in 2002 by the art critic and writer Brian Fallon, and included a foreword by the archaeologist and historian Peter Harbison.