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William Conor RHA RUA (1884-1968)
!e Irish Scene. Belfast. Derek MacCord. 1944.
Folio. p.p.26. 12 Full page illustrations, 6 in col-
our. Green cloth. Gilt title on spine
Provenance: !ought to have been acquired in
the 1940s and thence by descent to
current owners
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William Conor RHA RUA (1884-1968)
!e Benediction
Crayon, 45 x 35cm (17$ x 13$”)
Signed.
Gallery stamp verso - J.J. McGuigan, 34 Berry Street, London
Provenance: !ought to have been acquired in the 1940s and
thence by descent to current owners
An almost identical painting in oils by Conor sold in these rooms
4th October 2006, lot 138, for '38,000
Conor was born in Belfast in 1881 and attended the Belfast Gov-
ernment School of Art. In 1914 he became the o(cial war artist
in the Ulster Division and by 1918 he had work exhibited for the
&rst time at the RHA in Dublin.
In 1923 he exhibited at !e Goupil Gallery London and in 1924
and 1926!e Stephen’s Green Gallery, Dublin. He had an exhibi-
tion with the Waddington Galleries, Dublin in 1948 and in 1957
there was a retrospective exhibition at the Museum and Art Gal-
lery, Belfast.
He was a founder member of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art
and became its President in 1957. He was elected ARHA in
1938 and in 1946 became a full member of !e Royal Hiber-
nian Academy in Dublin and in all showed nearly 200 works
at the RHA.
He wrote.. “All my life I have been completely absorbed with
the activities of the Belfast people and the surrounding country.
Being a Belfast man myself it has been my ambition to reveal
the character of its people in all vigour, in all its senses of life, in
all its variety, in all its passion, humanity and humour”. In this
ambition he was successful being described as a “sort of Belfast
Dostoyevsky”.
Although he was Presbyterian, this did not hinder him depict-
ing Northern Catholics either
Going to Mass
in the countryside
or praying in church as is shown here. In all of these church
interiors he captures the di)erent generations always focusing
on the matriarchal grandmother in the foreground. Again he
has successfully captured a way of life that is now but a memory
in modern Ireland.
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