Andrew O'Connor Jr.

Andrew O’Connor was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1874. He received his earliest instruction from his father, a professional stone carver, and then found employment as a studio assistant at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. The following year he continued his studies with John Singer Sargeant (1856-1925) in London and with Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) in Paris. In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, O’Connor returned to America and set up a studio in Paxton, Massachusetts, outside of Worcester, where he worked on several important commissions including Spanish War Memorial (1917) for Worcester, and Abraham Lincoln (1918) for Springfield, Illinois. The same year he began his equestrian monument Marquis de Lafayette (1918-22) for Mount Royal Place, Baltimore, Maryland. (12/5/2019 - via donor Conner - Rosenkranz)