How does this artwork elucidate its Artist?
Born in Ireland in 1874, Jerome Connor moved at the age of 14 with his family to Massachusetts. His father was a stonemason, which led to Connor's jobs in New York as a sign painter, stonecutter, bronze founder, and machinist. Inspired by his father's work and his own experience, Connor used to steal his father's chisels as a child and carve figures into rocks.
In 1899, he moved into the Roycroft Institution where he helped with blacksmithing and eventually began making terracotta busts and reliefs. During four years at Roycroft, he became well known as a sculptor, and was commissioned to create civic works in bronze for placement in Washington, D.C., Syracuse, East Aurora, New York, San Francisco, and Ireland.
In 1925, he moved back to Ireland and opened his own studio in Dublin, but found few patrons and his work slowed. He died on August 21, 1943, of heart failure. There is a plaque in his honour on Infirmary Road, overlooking Dublin's Phoenix Park, with the words of his friend the poet Patrick Kavanagh:He sits in a corner of my memory
With his short pipe, holding it by the bowl,
And his sharp eye and his knotty fingers
And his laughing soul
Shining through the gaps of his crusty wall.
Jerome Connor East Aurora, New York Phoenix Park Washington, D.C. Patrick Kavanagh stonemason terracotta Roycroft Institution blacksmithing Syracuse Dublin Massachusetts