Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 27 SEPTEMBER 2023

52 39 WILLIAM CONOR RUA RHA (1881-1968) A Family Group in a Railway Station Wax crayon on paper, 37 x 47cm (14½ x 18½”) Signed Provenance: Dr Kurt Ticher, purchased directly from the artist, thence by descent. € 10,000 - 15,000 William Conor, who was born in Belfast in 1881, is certainly best known for his scenes of everyday life, particularly but not exclusively in his native city. He studied at the Belfast College of Art and by 1904 he was working on poster design as a lithographer. This training appears to have had a sustained impact on his work throughout his career, producing copious paintings and drawings which recorded the lives and activities of the working people of Belfast. The present work depicts a scene in a railway station with three generations of women and small children about to enjoy a train trip out of the city. The smiling faces convey a happy group while the children wait in anticipation. Conor carried a notebook with him at all times which he could use to ‘’note down any happening which strikes me as interesting and significant’’. Conor add- ed that by hiding his sketching block behind a newspaper he had been able ‘’to garner many happy expressions’’ as is the case here where the subjects appear unaware that they are being observed. Conor began exhibiting at Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibitions from 1918 and a review of the titles provides a snap-shot of this artist’s favourite subjects - ‘ Mill-workers’, ‘The Street Singers’, ‘The Knife Grinder’, ‘The Jaunting Car’, ‘The Singing Class ’ and the 1939 work en- titled ‘ Waiting for the Excursion Train ’ which on the basis of the subject of the present work, could as easily be the title of this work.