Brian Bourke (born 1936 in Dublin) is an Irish artist.^[1]

Bourke was born in Dublin in 1936. His parents were Thomas Bourke (Tómas de Búrca) and Eileen (Eibhlín) Bourke (née Somers).^[2] Bourke left school early and got a job in the art department of the Player Wills tobacco company on the condition he enrolled at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD).^[3] He later studied at Saint Martin's School of Art in London.^[1] After London, he spent time in Germany and was strongly influence by the Neue Sachlichkeit art movement. He returned to Dublin in 1957 and held his first one-man show in Dublin in 1964 at the Dawson Gallery.^[4] He travelled across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.^[3]

In 1965 Bourke won an Arts Council prize for portraiture and represented Ireland at the Biennale de Paris. He won the Munster and Leinster Bank competition in 1966,^{[citation needed]} and first prize in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art competition in 1967.^[1] He was included in the Delighted Eye, the Hibernian landscape^[5] and the Cork Rosc exhibitions in 1980.^[4]

In 1985, he was named Sunday Independent Artist of the Year,^[6] and he received the O'Malley Award from the Irish-American Cultural Institute in 1993.^[1] A retrospective of his work was exhibited as part of the Galway Arts Festival in 1988.^[5]

In 1991, he was artist-in-residence at the Gate Theatre's Beckett Festival in Dublin, with accompanying works appearing at the Douglas Hyde Gallery.^[4]

In 2001, a large exhibition of his portraits of women, centred on portraits of his son's adopted daughter, appeared at the Dyehouse Gallery in Waterford.^{[citation needed]} He lives in Connemara, County Galway. Bourke held another retrospective exhibition in the Claremorris Gallery in 2022.^[7] He is a member of the Aosdána and an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.^[8]

Bourke's brother was the photographer Fergus Bourke.^[2] Bourke has married twice, first to Ann, a lecturer at NCAD, and secondly to Jay Murphy, also an artist.^[3]