Auction Date:2011 Oct 10 @ 18:00 (UTC+1)
Location:Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
Artist: William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1986)
Title: THE SEE-SAW (BOTANIC GARDENS)
Medium: crayon on paper
Signature: signed lower right
Dimensions: 51 by 61cm., 20 by 24in.
Provenance: Provenance:Arches Gallery, Belfast; Private collection; Whytes, 26 November 2007, lot 113; Private collection
Exhibited: Exhibited:Possibly exhibited as In the Botanic Gardens, Ulster Academy of Arts, Belfast, 1946, catalogue no. 154;
'A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life', National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 18 October, 2006 - 28 January 2007, catalogue no. 64
Literature: Literature:Rooney, Brendan, A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life, NGI, Dublin, 2006, p.119-20 (illustrated p.120)
Note: In the mid 1940s and early ‘50s Conor exhibited a series of work depicting children at play, including Swing High, Swing Low (1944), Hobby Horses (1947) and Chair-o-Planes (1951). The present work can be dated to this same period and – given the style of dress and the subject – may tentatively be identified as a work exhibited in 1946 under the title In the Botanic Gardens. In the catalogue to the 2006 National Gallery exhibition, Brendan Rooney wrote of this work: The carefree, excited play of children on a see-saw on a bright summer’s day can be seen as a kind of pictorial antidote to some of the harsher realities – illness, physical work, penury and unemployment – of life in working-class Belfast in the 1920s and 1930s, and a counterpoint to the daily toils of artisans and the lower middle-class. Significantly, and not withstanding the complexity of Conor’s identity, these pictures, including those of children at play, transcend the sectarianism that had crept with increasing virulence into Belfast from the late nineteenth century onwards. Conor delighted in depicting recreational activities, from music and games to singing, dancing, visits to the beach, theatre and even polo. Other works, including Lamp-post Swinging and Queue for the Picture House (both in the collection of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum) echo the cheeriness communicated in The See-Saw, and reflect the artist’s fascination with the collective nature of children’s recreation. His ability to communicate glee and good-humour was unsurpassed. Nor was it one-dimensional. He could capture with equal alacrity the jovial confidence of an army recruit, the celebratory air of a wedding party, or the giddiness of a dancing couple.
A study for this work was exhibited at the Oriel Gallery’s ‘William Conor Centenary Exhibition’, 8-22 July 1981, catalogue no. 9 (illustrated).
Auction Location:
Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
Previewing Details:
8-10 October 2011
Buyer's Premiums:
| From (Incl.) | To (Excl.) | Premium |
| 0.00 |
Infinite |
20% |
Additional Fees:
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