In 1920, Albert Power worked in collaboration with the artist Jack Morrow on an altar and reredos for St Catherine’s Church, Meath Street, Dublin — one of relatively few documented instances of Power partnering directly with another named artist on a single ecclesiastical commission, rather than executing the entire scheme independently.
St Catherine’s parish, in Dublin’s Liberties, is one of the oldest in the city, dating back roughly 800 years to the 13th century. The present church building was constructed in 1852, and has been in the care of the Augustinian Order since 1974. Power and Morrow’s elaborate gilded reredos — featuring carved figures and gold mosaic panels, with a marble statue of St Catherine bearing her traditional attribute of the wheel — sits behind the high altar beneath the church’s great rose window.
St Catherine’s also has its own significant place in Irish history: the original St Catherine’s Church on nearby Thomas Street was where Robert Emmet was executed in 1803. Power’s 1920 contribution to the present Meath Street church came shortly before his admission to Brixton Prison to model Terence MacSwiney’s life mask in October of that year.