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William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968) - SINGING A TUNE

Currency:EUR Category:Art Start Price:0.00 EUR Estimated At:3,000.00 - 5,000.00 EUR
William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968) - SINGING A TUNE

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Auction Date:2011 Dec 11 @ 14:00 (UTC+1)
Location:The Freemasons Hall - 17 Molesworth Street, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968) - SINGING A TUNE

oil pastel and crayon on paper
signed lower right and upper left
42 by 31cm., 16.5 by 12.2 5in.



Born into a skilled working class background in North Belfast, Conor entered the Belfast Government School of Design at the age of thirteen where he was trained in drawing for industry. Following his training Conor became a lithographic poster designer and later turned his talents towards portraiture. This change of direction garnered the artist his inaugural exhibition in 1910 at the Belfast Art Society. During World War I Conor was appointed by the Government to create visual records of soldiers and other military figures, resulting in his temporary relocation to London. There he was introduced to fellow Northerner, John Lavery, twenty-six years the artist’s senior, and to John Hewitt (poet and Head of the Art Department at the Belfast Museum). Both individuals were instrumental in furthering Conor’s career on his return to Belfast and championed the artist’s style and unique interpretation of ordinary life. Following World War II Conor set up his studio opposite the Ulster Museum on Stranmillis Road. This was to remain his artistic base until 1959 when he moved his work space to his home address in Salisbury Avenue, where he died in 1968.
Honest and sensitive depictions of his fellow countrymen and women reflect the artist’s innate ability to communicate the natural interactions of his subjects and a tenderness, in particular between women and children. Likened to French Realists Courbet and Millet, in Conor we find a prolific illustrator and a compulsive recorder of daily life. Snoddy notes that when Conor wrote in 1923 to Lawrence Haward, director of the Manchester City Art Galleries, he explained to him that it had long been his custom to carry around a sketchbook in his pocket, “…and to note down any little happening which strikes me as interesting and significant…”Conor returned time and time again to the streets of Belfast, his eternal source of inspiration.