Andrew O’Connor was born on 7 June 1874 at Worcester, Massachusetts. O’Connor received his early training from his father; in 1891-1892 he was employed at the Chicago World’s fair in the studio of William Ordway Partridge. From 1894 to [c.1897] he worked in the London studio of John Singer Sargent. O’Connor married in London in 1896 and had a daughter; he was divorced in 1906. O’Connor had travelled to Paris with his model, Jessie Phoebe Brown in 1905 and lived there until the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914. O’Connor received several commissions from the United States in the early 1900s, among them the mourning female figure Receuillement for the Thomas family memorial in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, near Tarrytown, New York. His statue of General Lawton was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1906 and was awarded the second-class medal. He continued to exhibit at the Paris Salon until his return to the United States in 1914. O’Connor set up his studio in Paxton, Massachusetts and worked on several commissions including the Spanish War of 1898 unveiled in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1917 and Lincoln, unveiled at Springfield, Illinois, in 1918. He took part in exhibitions in the United States and Paris and was elected an associate of the National Academy of America in 1919. O’Connor and his family returned to live in Paris in the mid 1920s; he exhibited Triple Cross at the 1926 Paris Salon and in 1928 was awarded the gold medal of the Salon for Tristan and Iseult. In 1929 he was invested Chévalier of the Legion d’Honneur. He collaborated with the American sculptor Gertrude Whitney on several of her commissions, including the Columbus memorial unveiled in Huelva, Spain in 1929. In 1932 O’Connor came to live in Leixlip, county Kildare where he completed his statue of Daniel O’Connell; he also had a studio at 50 Glebe Place, London during the 1930s. Moving back to Dublin at the outbreak of the World War 2, he lived at Merrion Square and died in Dublin on 9 June 1941. He is buried in Glasnevin cemetery. His works are in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin and the National Gallery of Ireland as well as Tate Britain, Walters Gallery of Art Baltimore, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Corcoran Gallery Washington and the Musée d’Art Moderne Paris.
Archival History ↴
Donated by a member of the O’Connor family
Immediate Source Acquisition ↴
Donation
Content & Structure
Scope & Content: Andrew O’Connor, 1874-1941. ↴
Andrew O’Connor photographs: eleven images of O’Connor in his studio, with his son Hector and the art critic Jean Prouvaire, of his work, and of Gertrude Whitney’s war memorial at Saint Nazaire, France. Four series include photographic material and press cuttings relating to the O’Connor sculptures General Lafayette, Triple Cross, Le Débarquement, and Tristan and Isolde. Included in the Triple Cross material is a booklet entitled Christ the King, monument to be erected at Dun Laoghaire, 1932. A series relating to the construction of Gertrude Whitney’s Columbus memorial at Huelva, Spain, 1929 includes letters and invoices relating to supply of materials for the project.
Appraisal Destruction ↴
Permanent Retention
Accruals ↴
None expected
Arrangement ↴
Six chronological series
Conditions of Access & Use
Access Conditions
Access by appointment and in accordance with NGI Library and Archive access policy.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Material may only be reproduced, in accordance with NGI Library and Archives access policy, with permission of the archivist, and in accordance with relevant copyright legislation.
Creation Dates
[c1904-1937]
Level of Description
Fonds
Extent Medium
1 box. Paper textual documents and photographs.
Material Language Script
English, French, Spanish
Finding Aids
NGI/CSIA/OCO descriptive list available from reading room
Archive Web Link →
Allied Materials
Related Material
OCO/CSIA Holdings: Files of ephemera relating to O'Connor available from CSIA reading room.
Publication Note
Potterton, Homan, Andrew O’Connor, a complementary catalogue to the exhibition held in Trinity College, Dublin, September 1974.
Soderman, Doris Flodin, The Sculptors O’Connor, Gundi publishers, Worcester, M.A., 1995.
Descriptive Control Area
Archivist Note
Dorothy Redmond
Rules/Conventions
ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description, 2nd ed. Ottawa: International Council on Archives, 2000.
