John Hughes (27 January 1865 – 6 June 1941) was an Irish

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Life

Hughes was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

and educated at North Richmond Street

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. He entered the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin in 1878 and trained as a part-time student for ten years. In 1890 he won a scholarship to the

South Kensington School of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It off ...

, London, after which another scholarship took him to Paris. He then studied further in Italy. He was appointed as teacher to the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin in 1894 and in 1902 became Professor of Sculpture in the

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the RIA, the academy retained the word "Royal" after most of Ireland became in ...

School. His last residence in Dublin was at 28 Lennox Street,

Portobello Portobello, Porto Bello, Porto Belo, Portabello, or Portabella may refer to: Places Brazil * Porto Belo Ireland * Portobello, Dublin * Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin formerly ''Portobello Barracks'' New Zealand * Portobello, New Zealand, on Ot ...

. From 1903 he moved to Paris, where he worked on Ireland's monument to Queen Victoria. In 1905, Hughes became a founding member of the

Royal Society of Sculptors The Royal Society of Sculptors is a British charity established in 1905 which promotes excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. Its headquarters are a centre for contemporary sculpture on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London. It ...

. In 1920 he relocated to Florence, where he lived with one of his sisters until 1926, after which he spent most of his time traveling through France and Italy. He died at

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...

on 6 June 1941.

Works

In Ireland: *''Man of Sorrow''; ''Madonna and Child'', both 1901, for Loughrea Cathedral *''A dying Irish soldier overlooked by Erin'', now in the garden of

Dublin Castle Dublin Castle ( ga, Caisleán Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a former Motte-and-bailey castle and current Irish government complex and conference centre. It was chosen for its position at the highest point of central Dublin. Until 1922 it was the s ...

Conference Centre *''Monument to Charles Kickham'', in

Tipperary Tipperary is the name of: Places *County Tipperary, a county in Ireland **North Tipperary, a former administrative county based in Nenagh **South Tipperary, a former administrative county based in Clonmel *Tipperary (town), County Tipperary's na ...

. *Monument to

George Salmon George Salmon FBA FRS FRSE (25 September 1819 – 22 January 1904) was a distinguished and influential Irish mathematician and Anglican theologian. After working in algebraic geometry for two decades, Salmon devoted the last forty years of his ...

, at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

Others: *''W. E. Gladstone Memorial'', intended for the

Phoenix Park The Phoenix Park ( ga, Páirc an Fhionnuisce) is a large urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its perimeter wall encloses of recreational space. It includes large areas of grassland and tre ...

, but installed instead at

Hawarden Hawarden (; cy, Penarlâg) is a village, community and electoral ward in Flintshire, Wales. It is part of the Deeside conurbation on the Wales-England border and is home to Hawarden Castle. In the 2011 census the ward of the same name had ...

in 1925. *''

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

'', unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1907 outside

Leinster House Leinster House ( ga, Teach Laighean) is the seat of the Oireachtas, the parliament of Ireland. Originally, it was the ducal palace of the Dukes of Leinster. Since 1922, it is a complex of buildings, of which the former ducal palace is the core, ...

in Dublin, re-erected in Sydney, Australia in 1987.

References

External links

*Alan Denson: ''John Hughes, sculptor, 1865-1941: A documentary biography''. 1865 births 1941 deaths Irish sculptors People from Portobello, Dublin 20th-century Irish sculptors 20th-century male artists 19th-century Irish sculptors Male sculptors 19th-century male artists Alumni of the National College of Art and Design {{Ireland-sculptor-stub