Koner's photographs of Dublin's inner city and docklands reflected his abiding interest in social conditions and portray Dublin at a time when the inner city and docklands suffered from high unemployment, poverty and general deprivation.
In 1990, Koner's widow, Silvia, donated the photographs to the National Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, New York.
The images would become the basis for the museum's widely acclaimed "Dublin: Then and Now" exhibit staged in 2006 at the National Library in Dublin.
In the summer of 2003, Dublin photographer Declan Corrigan was commissioned by the museum to take photographs of Dublin's inner city and docklands as an epilogue to those taken forty years earlier by Koner. Corrigan's photographs attest to the massive transformation that has taken place in the intervening forty years.
The Irish Consulate in Manhattan is running an exhibit beginning this week featuring the work of both photographers. The consulate is at 345 Park Ave, 17th floor. To arrange for a viewing, email newyorkcongen@dfa.ie or call (212) 319-2554/2563.
