A Portrait of John Scorror O'Connor: Engraver, Painter and Teacher
By (Author) Michael Feargus O'Connor
Introduction by Richard Ingrams
Unicorn Publishing Group
Unicorn Press Ltd
10th June 2025
27th March 2025
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Individual artists, art monographs
759.2
Hardback
160
Width 200mm, Height 195mm
John OConnor (19132004), a romantic but also a realist, recorded old endangered things, high and low: churches, canals, barges, dilapidated barns and garden sheds. With a keen eye, sure hand and way with words, he drew, engraved, painted and described what he valued most around him. Talkative, friendly as a teacher, humorous and hard-working, his curiosity about his fellow human beings and affection for, and knowledge of all things English, drove much of his best work. He enjoyed the process of engraving into his 90s, illustrating articles for The Oldie. A scholarship from Leicester Art School took him to the Royal College of Art in 1933 where his tutors were Eric Ravilious, and John Nash RA who shared his interest in plants and gardening. Illustrated with family photographs and reproductions of his fathers work, this biographical account by his son, Michael OConnor (Mike), was still unfinished when Mike died in 2021. It has been edited and seen into print by Josie, Mikes daughter.
Michael Feargus OConnor, the only son of John and Jeannie OConnor, studied Fine Art at Newcastle University before becoming a print-maker and running a successful T-shirt printing business with his wife, Lisa, in the west of Ireland.