John Smyth

John Smyth (1776–1840) was an Irish sculptor.

Early life and family The son of sculptor Edward Smyth (1749–1812), John Smyth was born in Dublin. There is no surviving record of his mother. He was likely trained at the Dublin Society's school, and worked with his father at 36 Montgomery Street (now Foley Street) in Dublin.

Career Smyth's studies of Hibernia, Mercury and Fidelity on the pediment of Dublin's GPO One of his first public works was a monument to John Ball in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

He assisted his father, Edward, with a number of sculptures at Parliament House (now Bank of Ireland), the King's Inns, and with decorative plaster and stonework at the Chapel Royal of Dublin Castle. He also sculpted the statues of Mercury, Fidelity, and Hibernia for the pediment of the General Post Office, Dublin (c.1814). From 1815, Smyth focused on portrait busts and funerary monuments, including those to John Boardman (c. 1814), and George Ogle (1815). In 1818, Smyth was commissioned to produce a bust of Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which was displayed at the Society of Artists in 1819 alongside a bust of his wife Arabella by Thomas Kirk.

A number of his works are held by the National Gallery of Ireland.