Remembering the day Robert Fisk walked into the Olivier Cornet Gallery

This gallerist knows he's told the story before but August 3rd has always a very special meaning...

On this day on Friday the 3rd of August 2018, my intern Antonio opened the door to this softly-spoken gentleman who after taking a look at our show, Chiens Bleus, Chiens gris, a solo exhibition by the artist LEYHO, insisted on talking to me. I was very busy in the other room, preparing for a meeting. Anyway this gentleman wanted to talk to me about some of the 1916 photos taken by my great grand-uncle François Bost during WWI, which were also included in the show.

As he walked towards me in the other room, our storage area, where I was kinda hiding, I just went Oh my God, are you Robert Fisk? What are you doing here, but you’re not Irish.. I would never say anything like that to visitors but I just could not work out how a British journalist, an expert of the so called ‘Middle-East’ who lived in the Lebanon, and whom I had heard so much about when I was a student of Arabic back in France in the mid 80s, could possibly show up in an art gallery in Dublin and express an interest in an obscure WWI photographer. I had no idea then of the strong connection Robert Fisk had with Ireland. I had to apologise to Robert and explain a bit about my reaction...

I was so shocked after his long visit-I was really star-struck- that I walked out of the gallery and spent time in the Garden of Remembrance, thinking of what he was going to write in his article for the UK Independent.

The day after his visit to the gallery, the article was all ready but Robert sent me a draft for me to look at, he wanted to be sure that he got it all right, he was such a pro...

And here it was, “thee” article in the UK Independent, a couple of days later:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/first-world-war-exhibition-photographs-can-t-tell-the-truth-robert-fisk-a8484446.html

Later published in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, between headlines about other wars in the region:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1426295

To my shock and horror -Robert and I had spent so much time choosing which of my great grand-uncle's photographs should be published in the article-, none of these photographs were in the article. Instead the UK Independent team had included generic photos of WWI.

I emailed Robert straight away, and I got a phone call from him shortly afterwards. Something along these lines: "Olivier, this is Robert, am in Paris, about to board my next flight, call London and tell them I am very p***** off about the pics. I am counting on you, bye".

I am glad to report that all ended well and I did not need to use these words!

I was so sad when I heard of Robert’s passing in November 2020
A year later, one evening, it was on January 6 2021, I was exchanging a few emails with the great journalist Lara Marlowe reminiscing about Robert (Lara was his first wife) when we had to stop that fascinating exchange: The United States Capitol had just been assaulted, but that is a story for another day.

About Chiens Bleus – Chiens Gris
https://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/chiens-bleus-chiens-gris

To find out more about the very special prints I commissioned Robert Russell to produce and which have now joined important collections, please visit the WWI Collection Series page.

PS: the show also got a full review by Aidan Dunne
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/battlefield-photos-provide-ammunition-for-drawings-of-first-world-war-1.3580813

Olivier Cornet
3 August 2025