John McClarey’s works grace such distinguished collections as the Henry Horner Lincoln Collection at the Illinois State Historical Library and the Lincoln National Historic Site in Springfield. His most prized commission was a bronze sculpture of Abraham Lincoln which was dedicated at the Russian State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow in June of 1998. Other works of note include a commission to sculpture a number of prominent church figures that played an important part in the early history of Chicago and the Chicago Temple and a commission by the united Methodist Publishing House in Nashville to sculpt the founders of Methodism for the 1784-1984 Bicentennial of American Methodism.

McClarey, a Decatur, Illinois native, worked as a high school history teacher for 26 years, specializing in Lincoln and Illinois Indians. He has been sculpting for 25 years, with Lincoln as his most frequent subject. He has also sculpted such figures as Black Hawk, Robert E. Lee and Ronald Reagan. He most recently finished a piece of the Lincoln Family with their two children which is currently on view at the Lincoln Home Historic Site. He is currently working on a line of sculptures called "Americana", which features such figures as an American farmer, a "country school marm," and a stump preacher.