Rogers, John

1829

1904

John Rogers was an American sculptor who produced very popular, relatively inexpensive figurines in the latter 19th century. He is known for his small genre sculptures, popularly termed "Rogers Groups". These were mass-produced in cast plaster. A total of 80,000 copies of almost 80 Rogers Groups were sold across the United States and abroad. The English novelist and dramatist Charles Reade, a member of the Garrick Club, is known furnished his home with all the Rogers figurines available to him. Rogers was inspired by popular novels, poems and prints as well as the scenes he saw around him. John Rogers was born in Salem, Massachusetts on October 30, 1829 to an unsuccessful but well-connected Boston merchant and attended Boston English High School . He gave early evidence of artistic interests and even as a young child, showed a taste and talent for drawing. In 1848 he began a career as a machinist and draftsman at the Amoskeag Locomotive Works in Manchester, New Hampshire. However he was drawn to sculpture and began to model in clay in his leisure hours. In 1856 Rogers worked in Hannibal, Missouri as a mechanic with the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, but left for Europe in 1858 to continue his education as a sculptor returning the following year to pursue his career as a sculptor. Between 1860 and 1893 Rogers sculpted approximately 85 different groups of statuary, with 25 workman in his New York factory turning out thousands of plaster castings of his works. Of some subjects executed by Rogers, only a few copies were cast and sold, whereas with others, thousands were sold. Rogers died at his home in New Canaan, Connecticut in 1904.