John Francis Kavanagh was born in Crinkill Barracks, Birr, County Offaly, Ireland on 24 September 1903. He studied sculpture at Crawford School of Art in Cork from 1919 to 1921; Liverpool School of Art in 1920–21; and at the Royal College of Art, London from 1925 to 1928, where he was taught by Henry Moore, Charles Sargeant Jagger, William Rothenstein and Gilbert Ledward. He then worked as an assistant to Jagger. In 1929 he was awarded a Royal College of Art travelling scholarship and subsequently visited Paris, Berlin and Vienna. The following year he won the Prix de Rome and attended the British School in Rome from 1930 to 1933.

Following his return to England in 1933 he was appointed Head of the School of Sculpture and Modelling at Leeds College of Art, a post he held until 1939. He returned to teaching in 1951 when he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Sculpture at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, New Zealand where he remained until his retirement in 1968.

Kavanagh exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of British Sculptors in London; the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Leeds City Art Gallery; and at various galleries in New Zealand. He was elected an Associate member of Royal Society of British Sculptors (ARBS) in 1935, and a Fellow of Royal Society of British Sculptors (FRBS) in 1945.

He worked on a number of commissions for the Roman Catholic Church notably a bronze bust of Cardinal Hinsley in 1939, and a nine foot high limestone statue of Our Lady of Consolation for the Catholic Hospital, Lambeth Road, London in 1940.

Kavanagh died in Auckland, New Zealand on 18 June 1984.

_{Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)}