John Cassidy (1 January 1860 – 19 July 1939) was an Irish sculptor and painter who worked in Manchester, England, and created many public sculptures.
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Life
Cassidy was born in the townland of Littlewood Commons, Slane, County Meath, Ireland, on 1 January 1860. He moved to Dublin at the age of 20 to find work. There 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 studied at the Manchester School of Art in 1883 and taught there in 1887.
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. For most of his career, his studio was at Lincoln Grove in Chorlton-on-Medlock.
Works
The body of Cassidy's work consisted mainly of memorials and statues.
In 1894, the philanthropist Enriqueta Rylands commissioned a statue from Cassidy of her late husband, the textile manufacturer John Rylands. It was placed in the reading room of the John Rylands Library in Manchester, which she founded in her husband's memory. Supporters of the library later commissioned Cassidy to sculpt a statue of Enriqueta herself, which was unveiled in 1907. Both statues still stand today at either end of the library reading room, now part of the Manchester University Library. Also within the library is a sculpted group of three figures representing Theology inspiring Science and Art (1898).