(b Dublin, 7 Nov 1751; d London, 12 Jan 1795). Irish sculptor, also active in England. He worked under a local carver before coming to England in 1776 and entering the Royal Academy Schools. From 1777 he exhibited regularly at the Academy. In 1778 he won the Academy’s Gold Medal with a relief representing the Massacre of the Innocents (sold London, Christie’s, 15 March 1798). His portrait of Sarah Siddons as ‘Cassandra’ (exh. RA 1786; ex-Cyril Humphries col.; sold New York, Sotheby’s, 11 Jan 1995, lot 163) is a finely carved marble statuette, unusual at the time in England for its small scale (h. 730 mm). Hickey’s marble portrait busts include his champion Edmund Burke (1785; Wentworth Woodhouse, S. Yorks; replica, London, BM) and George Thicknesse (1791; London, St Paul’s Sch.). Appointed Sculptor to the Prince of Wales (later George IV) in 1786, he produced for the Grand Staircase at Carlton House (destr.), London, a pair of plaster figures of Atlas and Time supporting a clock, the model for which (untraced) he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1788. Hickey’s finest work is the monument to David La Touche (red and white marble, h. c. 7.6 m, 1790; Delgany, Co. Wicklow), a five-figure group comprising three heroic mourning figures bound by swathes of drapery supporting a sarcophagus surmounted by a draped urn. Above, a pediment supports a statue of the deceased in contemporary dress, flanked by a giant cornucopia and reclining female figure representing Commerce. His most ambitious work in England, the marble monument to Elizabeth Hawkins and her Family (1782; Abingdon, Oxon, St Helen), is more obviously derivative (particularly recalling John Bacon), as are his smaller relief memorials. Edmund Burke was enthusiastic in promoting Hickey and secured for him the commission for the monument to David Garrick in Westminster Abbey, London; his second choice was Thomas Banks. Hickey died before work could begin, and the monument was executed by Henry Webber (1754–1826). Thomas Hickey ( fl 1753–1816), his brother, worked as a portrait painter in Dublin, London and India.