Andrew O'Connor (sculptor)

Andrew O'Connor (1874-1941) was an American-Irish sculptor whose work is represented in museums in America, Ireland, Britain, and France.

Training and Early Work

It is to be presumed that he was taught by his father, a Scottish-born sculptor of the same name, who was active in Worcester, Mass. He is first noted in 1891-92 when he was employed at the Chicago Worlds Fair, possibly as one of the studio of William Ordway Partridge. By 1894 he was in London and working in the studio of the painter John Singer Sargent where he was a model for one of the prophets for Sargent's mural for Boston Library. Through the sculptor D C French, O'Connor was awarded the commission in 1900 for the Vanderbilt Memorial bronze doors on St Bartholomew's Church, New York. At this time he was also employed by the architect, Cass Gilbert. He modeled a figure of Inspiration for the Art Palace at the St Louis Exposition, 1904.

Later Career

About 1904, he settled in Paris with his supposed wife and model, Jesse Phoebe Brown, and they remained there until the outbreak of war in 1914. He exhibited at the Salon, first in 1906 (General Lawton) and every year thereafter until his return to the States in 1914. He established a studio at Paxton, Mass in 1914 and over the next twelve years or so carried out many commissions for public monuments in America and exhibited widely. He returned to Paris about 1926 and remained there until about 1932 when he went to live in Ireland but later had a studio in London. He died in Dublin.

Statue of Christ the King

O'Connor exhibited a Triple Cross at the Paris Salon of 1926 with the intention that it might be commissioned as a memorial to the dead of the first World War. In 1932 Dun Laoghaire (Co Dublin) Council commissioned a statue of Christ the King from O'Connor and twelve years later, in 1949, he delivered the large-scale bronze sculpture which had been conceived as the Triple Cross. Owing to opposition from the Catholic Church, the monument was not put in place at that time. It was later, in 1978, erected at Haigh Terrace, Dun Laoghaire.[1].

Selected Works

Justice and other figures, Essex County Court House, Newark, NJ (1904); General Henry Ware Lawton, Garfield Park, Indianapolis (1906); General Lew Wallace, Hall of Fame, Capitol Building, Washington, DC (1909); Governor John A Johnson, St Paul, Minnesota (1912)[2]; Spanish War Memorial, Worcester, Mass (1917); Lincoln, Springfield, Ill (1918); Lafayette, Washington Place, Baltimore (1918); There are works in the following museums: Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Brooklyn Museum; Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Tate Gallery[3]; National Gallery of Ireland; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.