Flaxman, John, 1755–1826, English sculptor and draftsman. At 20 he went to work for Josiah Wedgwood, designing the cameolike decorations for Wedgwood's pottery. Later, in Rome, he devoted himself to sculpture and produced outline figure drawings from Greek vases as illustrations for works of Homer, Dante, Aeschylus, and Hesiod. These were engraved by his friend William Blake. He is well known for his neoclassical memorial sculpture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Admiral Earl Howe, and Lord Nelson (all: St. Paul's Cathedral).

Flaxman, John

(born July 6, 1755, York, Eng.—died Dec. 7, 1826, London) British sculptor, illustrator, and designer. In 1770 he entered the Royal Academy schools. After 1775 he worked for pottery designer Josiah Wedgwood, producing designs based on Classical antiquity. He directed the Wedgwood studio in Rome (1787–94), but his book illustrations were of far greater importance; his illustrations for the Iliad (1793), Odyssey (1795), and Divine Comedy (1807) became very well known. The leading Neoclassical artist in England, he became the Royal Academy's first professor of sculpture (1810). In his own day his reputation as a sculptor, notably of monuments with large groups of free-standing figures, was exceeded only by that of Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen.