Adam's Important Irish Art 5th December 2018

114 107 WILLIAM CONOR RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968) Family on a Cart Pastel and charcoal on paper, 62 x 47cm (24½ x 18½’’) Signed An old label for The Godfrey Phillips Galleries is affixed verso William Conor was born in Belfast and studied graphic design at the Government School of Design and was then apprenticed to a poster designer. He exhibited at the RHA for the first time in 1918 and continued to do so until the year before his death. During both World Wars Conor was commissioned by the British Government to produce records of soldiers in the form of sketches, some of which were included in an exhibition of war artists at the National Gallery, London in 1941. He spent a number of years in London in the 1920’s where he met John Lavery and Augustus John, and in 1926 travelled to America to undertake various portrait commissions. Conor was elected a member of the RHA in 1946. His works can be found in major collections including the Ulster Museum, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Crawford Municipal Gallery, Imperial War Museum in London. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Conor worked for many years in a lithographic studio and the techniques he learned there were often incorporated into his later drawings and paintings. His handling of the medium and treatment of the shad- ows in the present work illustrates these influences. As a recorder of daily life in Belfast and beyond in the early years of the twentieth century Conor was, perhaps, unique. Writing about him in 1951 John Hewitt thought his chief virtue was ‘a fundamental sincerity’ (The Arts in Ulster, 1951, p. 88), while twenty years later Kenneth Jamison saw him as ‘a kind of Irish Daumier, but with- out the bitter satirical edge; certainly an impressionist of sorts whose affection for his subjects saved him from becoming doctrinaire’. (Causeway: The Arts in Ulster, 1971, p. 44). These sentiments are clear to be seen in this fine composition, representing a way of life long since disappeared. € 8,000 - 12,000