HOGAN, John 1800-58

Hogan was born in Cork. He was encouraged to become a sculptor by the architect Sir Thomas Deat, to whom he was apprenticed. Eventually Hogan was enabled to visit Rome through the generosity of Lord de Tabley and other benefactors, including William Carty, the Cork critic and writer. Once in Rome he stayed for twenty-four years, from 1824 to 1848. He was considered highly by Thorwaldsen, who is said to have remarked to Hogan 'My son, you are the best sculptor I leave after me in Rome'. In Ireland he was employed mainly in tombs and religious work, though he also sculpted portrait busts.

Literature: John Turpin, John Hogan, Dublin, 1982

Following quotes published by J.S Hylands Company, Chicago "Ireland in Pictures" Copyright date (unsure, early 1900’s)

"In the Museum, Dublin- It has been a just complaint of Irishmen of talent that they have been handicapped, so to speak, in their pursuit of fame and fortune, unless they abandoned Irish subjects and curbed their national sentiments. Ireland has produced many painters and sculptors of note, but like her chiefest soldiers, statesmen and authors, they have been compelled, in general, to devote their talent to the pleasing of other people than their own- in a word, to find a market for their talent outside of Ireland and Irish interest. The poverty and decay of public spirit in Ireland, justly attributed to the loss of national autonomy, has fixed this doom upon Irish genius. " Unprized are her sons till they learn to betray" the principles of their sires. This is as true of the artist, Barry, Forde, Maclise, Foley and others, as of the soldiers, Wellington and Roberts, and the authors and scientists like Leckey and Tyndall. . Hogan, the only Irish sculptor who really devoted himself to Irish subjects, died in Obscurity. Yet, although Ireland possesses but a tithe of her children’s works, Dublin is rich in an Art Gallery wherein are collected many of the fines studies of the great masters."

"Hogan’s Statue of O’Connell, City Hall Dublin- The great artist, whose genius has preserved for all time the figure and the finest expression of the illustrious Daniel O, Connell.....stands almost upon the same spot where O’Connell uttered his first speech against the Union in 1800.

"The chief cities of Ireland have been prolific in painters and sculptors in the past, and it is to be hoped that the places left vacant by Hogan, Foley, Maclise and other fine artists will be filled by the genius of the rising generation."

For more on Hogan, visit the National Gallery of Ireland.

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