John Flannagan

John Flannagan studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are art of. Work by John Flannagan is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Illustration — Female Nude by John B. Flannagan 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.

• Illustration — The Maverick Horse by John B. Flannagan 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, Charles Prendergast, 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." Back in the United States by 1934, Flannagan found work with the PWAP, the Depression-era government program that sponsored American artists. He received this position, his only means of support at the time, through the influence of Juliana Force, the first director of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Force and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney had been longtime supporters of the sculptor, recognizing that he was a profoundly troubled man but also an exceptionally talented artist. Flannagan's time with the PWAP did not go smoothly. "The artist's alcoholism was always problematic: he alternated marathon work sessions with drinking bouts. Indeed, Flannagan had put in ninety hours one week and then took the next two weeks off, as was his custom. He worked until he was utterly exhausted and then drank to blot out the fatigue." He lost his job with the PWAP. His ensuing mental breakdown and seven months' incarceration in a mental institution, followed by a divorce, did not lessen Flannagan's resolve to produce as much quality sculpture as possible, but, in 1939, after being struck by a car and sustaining a severe closed head injury, it became increasingly difficult for him to function.

Destitute, depressed and suffering from ill health, Flannagan committed suicide on January 6, 1942.