The Victims - A Revised Interpretation

When I first saw this sculpture about ten years ago, I assumed it was a religious scene, perhaps depicting the removal of Jesus from the cross. While photographing it, a young girl asked her mother, "Is that God lying on a table?" Since then, I've discovered that its meaning is far more complex.

A War Memorial Concept

This figurative sculpture, "The Victims," originated as part of an unexecuted project for a war memorial in Washington, DC. The artist, Andrew O'Connor, conceived the idea for a vast memorial around 1918 and worked on the project until at least 1931. However, the monument was never commissioned. It consisted of three sections, the first being a group of three figures: a dead soldier strapped to a bier, mourned by his wife and mother.

The Figures

• The Victim: The figure of the dead soldier, inscribed with "Naked you came into the world."
• The Wife: The kneeling figure, hands clasped in prayer, also known as "The Virgin" or "Mother of Sorrows." She bears the inscription, "As cranes chanting their dolorous notes traverse the sky" (from Dante's Inferno).
• The Mother of the Hero: The standing female figure, leaning mournfully on her left elbow.

History and Context

The sculptor's family donated "The Victim" to the Dublin Municipal Gallery (now Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane) in 1947. O'Connor himself had presented the other two figures in 1938. As is often the case with his work, he produced other versions – a plaster cast of "The Victim" remains with the O'Connor family collection, and a version of "The Wife" is held at the Tate Gallery in London.

The intended arrangement was with "The Victim" on a raised plinth, his wife kneeling at his head, and his mother standing at his feet. "The Victims" was finally installed in 1976 following an exhibition marking the centenary of the sculptor's birth at Trinity College Dublin in 1974. It seems that only then were the three figures displayed together as originally intended, creating this stark, figurative representation of war's victims.

About the Artist

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, in 1874, Andrew O'Connor was the son of an Irish-American sculptor of the same name. Having studied under his father, O'Connor Jr. began producing public monuments and funerary commissions in the United States. Around 1894-8 in London, he met John Singer Sargent and assisted with the reliefs for Sargent's Boston Library decorations. Andrew O'Connor's style was established by his first visit to Paris in 1903, and his earliest work reflects the Franco-American style popular in America at the turn of the century.

Unlike many American sculptors, he remained in France until 1914, working from a Paris studio. From 1906 onward, he exhibited annually at the Salon in Paris and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin (1907). He returned to the USA from 1914 to the mid-1920s, receiving numerous commissions for major works, including the Lincoln monument in Springfield, Illinois, and the Theodore Roosevelt memorial in Glenview, Chicago. O'Connor's final years were spent in Europe – first in Paris, then dividing his time between Ireland and London from around 1932. He resided in Dublin for the last seven months of his life, passing away at his home at No.77 Merrion Square.