The Seduction of Barbara (2008, watercolor on paper, 11 x 19 inches)
In the brightly lit drawing room of his Bedon’s Alley home, Hagerty lets his imagination romp, doodling in notebooks, drawing on paper, and painting on canvas and miscellaneous other media (including bones and mandibles). “It’s like improv,” he says of painting his dreams.
A brief boyhood encounter with art historian and cultural maven Laura Bragg left a lasting impact on the future plastic surgeon. Through introducing him to the artwork of Hieronymus Bosch, Bragg helped open new ways of seeing and expressing for Hagerty, who struggled with dyslexia. His painting and drawing is “another form of language,” says Hagerty, who now signs his work backwards.
The Garden (1985, watercolor on paper, 37 x 24 inches)
Parrots (2012, watercolor on paper, 29 x 19 inches)
The artist with wife and poet Barbara in the courtyard of their downtown home
pictured as an infant in 1950
with sweetheart Barbara Gervais Street in 1969
Barbara with their children—Gervais, Curry, Richard, and Hart—in 1987
Hagerty performing cleft-palate surgery at a teaching hospital in Vietnam in 2009
Hagerty frequently depicts himself as a bull [above: Bull (Self Portrait), 2007, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches]. Here the animal has painting canvases pinned over its eyes. His dyslexia and rampant imagination often left him feeling “like a bull in a china shop,” the artist explains.
Runaway Train (1976, watercolor on paper, 21 x 28 inches)
Hagerty’s work has graced Piccolo Spoleto posters five times over, including the 1990 triptych titled Hurricane Hugo, as well as a poster for the Sophia Institute’s Mosaics of Mary event in 2003.
Blue Circle Chevreul (2009, oil on canvas, 48 x 24 inches)
Smaller pieces and journal drawings often end up being transposed to larger pieces
No longer spending his days operating and seeing patients, Hagerty is embracing the life artistic full-time, painting in his home studio as well as at the family’s Edisto Island retreat.
Hagerty’s richly symbolic surrealistic images are inspired by his musings and rigorous study of various fields and practices: philosophy, mythology, religion, Jungian psychology, physics, and meditation. Volition (2006, oil on canvas, 60 x 96 inches)
For Hagerty, art is one way to bring order (or perhaps geometry) to the chaos of the unconscious. Geometric Smile (2014, oil on paper, 16 x 12 inches)
Grandbaby Scout (daughter of Gervais and husband Anthony Del Porto) brings new joy and inspiration to her painter and poet grandparents.
![Hagerty frequently depicts himself as a bull [above: Bull (Self Portrait), 2007, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches]. Here the animal has painting canvases pinned over its eyes. His dyslexia and rampant imagination often left him feeling “like a bull in a china shop,” the artist explains.](https://charlestonmag.com/sites/default/files/styles/800wide/public/7%20Bull%20%28Self%20Portrait%29_opt_0.jpeg?itok=d_HfN4qS)
