John Flannagan (sculptor)

John Bernard Flannagan (April 7, 1895 – January 6, 1942) was an American sculptor. Along with Robert Laurent and William Zorach, he is known as one of the first practitioners of direct carving (also known as taille directe) in the United States.

Flannagan was born in Fargo, North Dakota, on April 7, 1895. His father died when he was only five years old, and his mother, unable to support her family, placed him in an orphanage. "Unrelenting poverty . . . was to plague him for the rest of his life." He also suffered from severe depression and alcoholism, which ultimately led to his suicide.

In his youth, Flannagan was recognized as possessing artistic talents, and in 1914 he attended the Minneapolis School of Art, now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he studied painting. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Flannagan quit school and joined the Merchant Marines. He remained a merchant marine until 1922. After his return to civilian life, he was hired by painter Arthur B. Davies to work on Davies' farm in New York State. There Davis encouraged the young man to return to painting, which he did, also taking up wood carving. A year later, in 1922, Flannagan appeared in his first exhibition, along with Davies, Walt Kuhn, Charles Sheeler, William Glackens, and Charles and Maurice Prendergast. In 1927 Flannagan gave up painting and wood carving to concentrate on stone carving. In 1928 he produced some of the first American direct carved stone sculptures of note, one of which is entitled "Pelican."

The years between 1930 and 1933 found Flannagan, now married, in Ireland. There he mastered the technique of carving stones that he scavenged from the Irish countryside into sculptures, typically small animals. He felt that "there exists an image within every rock." His "aim [was] to produce a sculpture that hardly feels carved, but rather to have always been that way."

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