John Cassidy (artist)

Statue of Edward Colston by John Cassidy, Bristol, England
Statue of Enriqueta Rylands (detail)
The historic reading room looking west (statue of John Rylands by Cassidy in distance)

John Cassidy (born 1 January 1860 Slane, County Meath. Ireland, UK; died 19 July 1939 Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK) was an Irish sculptor and painter.

Life

Cassidy was born in Littlewood Commons, Slane, County Meath in 1860. He moved to Dublin at the age of 20 to find work. In Dublin he attended art classes at night and won a scholarship to study in Milan, Italy. After two years he moved to Manchester, England where he lived for the rest of his life. He created many public sculptures, especially war memorials and exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy and in Manchester City Art Gallery. He was for a time assisted in his studios by John Ashton Floyd, a local sculptor.[1]

Many of his works are in the Manchester district including three in the John Rylands Library, Deansgate. These include a statue of the library's founder Enriqueta Augustina Rylands made in 1907.[2][3] For most of his career his studio was at Lincoln Grove in Chorlton on Medlock. He died at St Joseph's Hospital in Whalley Range in 1939 and was buried in Southern Cemetery.[4]

References

  1. Obituary, Manchester City News, 22 July 1939, retrieved 26 March 2008
  2. D. A. Farnie, ‘Rylands, Enriqueta Augustina (1843–1908)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 accessed 5 Jan 2016
  3. Hulme, C. & Nicolson, L. John Cassidy, Manchester sculptor; Enriqueta Augustina Rylands
  4. Hulme John Cassidy, Manchester Sculptor
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