The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 90

William Rudolf O’Donovan
American, 1844–1920
From Confederate rebel to Bohemian sculptor, William Rudolf
O’Donovan is best known for his memorial statues and busts of
politicians, military figures, and fellow artists. O’Donovan was
born in what is now Preston County, West Virginia, to Irish and
German parents. At age seventeen, he joined the Confederate
Army and served in the Staunton Artillery until the war’s end.
Thereafter, he spent a year in Baltimore before settling in New
York City and opening a studio. Although O’Donovan’s only
training was as an apprentice to a stone cutter, he used his talents,
and Irish heritage, to climb the ranks of New York’s art world. He
collaborated with Maurice J. Powers, fellow Irishman, influential
politician, and owner of the National Fine Art Foundry, from
1871–1895. During these years O’Donovan created the Soldiers’
and Sailors’ Monument in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the stat-
ues of President Lincoln and General Grant at the Soldiers’ and
Sailors’ Arch at Prospect Park in Grand Army Plaza in Brook-
Thomas Eakins (American, 1844–1916), William O’Donovan
in his studio, 1891, photographic print, 2 1/3 x 3 1/8 in.,
miscellaneous photographs collection, Archives of American
Art, Smithsonian Institution.
REFERENCES:
Dearinger, David Bernard, ed. Paintings and Sculpture in the
Collection of the National Academy of Design. Volume 1,
1826–1925. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2004.
lyn, New York. For this latter commission, he collaborated with Quinlin, Michael P. “Civil War Memorials.” Irish America 27,
also a founding member of the Tile Club and an associate of the “Sculptors of Virginia.” The Southern Planter 74, no. 12 (Decem-
O’Donovan says: Sutherland, Daniel E. The Confederate Carpetbaggers. Baton
well-known Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins. O’Donovan was
National Academy of Design. In summation of his achievements,
In addition to the biographies of me extant, I can add noth-
ing, unless it is to say I have grave doubts sometimes—often,
indeed, if not always, if what I have done is, properly speaking,
art at all. In this, doubtless, I will be cheerfully sustained by
many, if not all, of my contemporaries—I may say, however,
that I have a good deal of amusement in the last three years in
trying to paint pictures, and I have quite given over the pursuit
of the, to me, elusive art of sculpture (The Southern Planter,
1246).
84 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
no. 1 (Dec 2011/Jan 2012): 92–95.
ber 1913): 1245–1248.
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
Tolles, Thayer, ed. American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Muse-
um of Art. Volume 1. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born
before 1865. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1999.
William Rudolf O’Donovan Papers (Collection 1575), The
Historical Society of Pennsylvania.