Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dixey, John
DIXEY, JOHN (d. 1820), sculptor and modeller, was born in Dublin, but came when young to London and studied at the Royal Academy. Here, from the industry and talent he showed, he was one of those selected from the students to be sent to finish their education in Italy. He is stated to have exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1788, but his name cannot be traced, unless he is identical with John Dixon of Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, who exhibited a design for a ceiling. In 1789, when on the point of leaving for Italy, he was offered advantages in America, which were sufficient to induce him to emigrate thither at once. Here he devoted himself with assiduity to the promotion and resuscitation of the arts in the United States, and after residing some years at New York was elected in 1810 or 1812 vice-president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He died in 1820. Dixey's labours were principally employed in the ornamental and decorative embellishment of public and private buildings, such as the City Hall at New York, the State House at Albany, &c.; but he executed some groups in sculpture as well. He married in America, and left two sons, George and John V. Dixey, who both adopted their father's profession as modellers, but the latter subsequently turned his attention to landscape-painting.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dunlap's History of the Arts of Design in the United States, i. 329, ii. 299.]