ir Thomas Farrell (1827-1900) was an Irish sculptor, the third and most successful of six brothers who all followed in the footsteps of their sculptor father, Terence Farrell (1798-1876). Sir Thomas Farrell created many of Dublin's public statues and, having exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy for many years, became its President in 1893, and was knighted in 1894. According to Walter G. Strickland's account in A Dictionary of Irish Artists (1913), given in LibraryIreland,
For many years Farrell had a lucrative practice, but his commissions fell off, mainly through the cessation of ecclesiastical work in Ireland, and his latter days were passed in straitened circumstances. Though generous and hospitable to his friends he was a man of retiring disposition and diffident about his work. In his statues and busts he was successful in getting the characteristic features of his subject, and his best works are well posed and strongly modelled. He was less happy in his imaginative work.
Works
- Memorial to Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin
- M. W. Balfe
- Relief of the Battle of Waterloo on the Wellington Testimonial in Phoenix Park, Dublin
Bibliography
"Sir Thomas Farrell RHA, PRHA." Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951. University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011. Web. 29 September 2020.
"Sir Thomas Farrell, Sculptor — Irish Artists." LibraryIreland. Web. 29 September 2020.
Last modified 29 September 2020