Irish Arts Review
Scenes of Ulster Life: The Paintings and Drawings of William ConorAuthor(s): Eileen BlackSource: Irish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 18 (2002), pp. 146-152Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25488318 .
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Scenes of Ulster Life
The Paintings and Drawings of William Conor
Eileen Black
discusses the art of one of the North's
most popular painters
Looking
back on his career, William
Conor (Fig 2) summed up the chief
focus of his work with an appealing directness: 'AH my life I have been com
pletely absorbed...with affection in the
activities of the Belfast people... Being a
Belfast man myself it has been my ambi
tion to reveal the Spiritual Character of
its people in all vigour, in all its senses of
life, in all its variety, in all its passion,
humanity and humour...'1 Though the
mills, shawled women and ragged chil
dren of his paintings of the 'twenties,
'thirties, and 'forties have long gone, his
standing as 'The People's Painter' as a
recent publication hailed him, remains
as high today as when his well-known
figure, with black soft hat and floppy bow tie, strolled the city streets.2
Like the people he so often portrayed, Conor's origins were working class. Born
on 9 May 1881 in a modest street in
north Belfast, he was one of seven chil
dren of Mary and William Connor.
(The second 'n' in the family name was
dropped by Conor in the early 1910s). At the tender age of thirteen, he
entered the Belfast Government School
of Art, his talent having been spotted by a neighbour of the school's headmaster,
who had observed him drawing in chalk on a wall. He remained at the school for
ten years, during which time he won
prizes for model drawing, life drawing, anatomy, and the antique. Amongst his
fellow students was Paul Henry, whose
artistic appearance and style of dress
was noted by Conor with perhaps a cer
tain degree of admiration. Paul, he rec
ollected, 'wore his hair right down to his
shoulders and he had a black hat and a
great bow tie, white shirt, black velvet
jacket, and peg-top trousers which were
narrow at the ankles and wide at the
hips'3 It seems not too far-fetched to
speculate that this artistic attire may
have been the inspiration for Conor's
own black hat and bow tie, as Judith
2. William CONOR (1881-1968): Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. c.1920. Oil on board, 54.9 x 37.9 cm.
(Ulster Museum). This intense self-portrait, depicting Conor as Byronic hero, shows him wearing his
traditional black floppy bow tie.
3. William CONOR: The Painter's Mother, c.1919. Oil on
canvas, 74 x 60.5 cm. (Ulster Museum). In this, one of Conor's most successful portraits, the sitter's personality
and expression are sensitively captured.
(Opposite) 1. William CONOR: The Launch. 1922. Oil on canvas, 106 x 80 cm. (sight) (Ulster Folk and
Transport Museum). In composing the painting in this
manner, Conor cleverly draws the spectator into the scene of the launch.
Wilson suggests in her book on Conor.4
In 1904, he began an apprenticeship as a lithographer and poster designer
with the Belfast firm of David Allen and
Sons but left around 1910, not wishing to pursue a career in this line. However,
although he turned his back on lithogra
phy, he was to make good use of the
experience, for the origins of his distinc
tive drawing technique of wax crayons
scraped with a razor blade stemmed
from these days. Undecided as to his next move, he then went travelling,
firstly to the Blasket Islands in county
Kerry, followed by Dublin and, there
after, to Paris for about six months in
1912. Whilst there, he studied the
Dutch and Italian Old Masters in the
city's museums and also explored mod
ern trends in art, working for a time in
the studio of the Cubist Andre Lhote, who welcomed students for a small fee.
Nevertheless, despite such forays, his
artistic inclinations remained firmly
directed towards the representational.
On his return to Belfast, he became
involved yet again with the Belfast Art
Society - he had been elected a member
in 1909 - and in 1913 became a com
mittee member. All the while, he con
tinued to draw people going about their
daily lives in the streets and industries,
generally sketching in crayon in a spon
taneous Impressionist style. These genre
scenes, though praised in the local press,
were slow to sell, possibly because
Belfast's wealthier inhabitants were
loathe to hang scenes of working-class
life on their drawing room walls. Judith Wilson recounts how R V Williams, a
friend of Conor, advised a wealthy ama
teur to purchase one of Conor's draw
ings of a mill worker, to which the man
replied, 'My wife doesn't like them
things. She worked in a mill herself, and
the neighbours might say yon was a por
trait of her, when she was young.'5
During the First World War, Conor
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Irish Arts Review
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Scenes of Ulster Life: The Paintings and Drawings of William Conor
4. William CONOR: Off: The Ulster Division. 1915. Charcoal, chalk on paper, 55 x
37.3 cm. (Ulster Museum). There is a particular poignancy to these images of excited troops, given the carnage they were to face at the Somme.
worked as a war artist, visiting munition works and army camps,
recording the lives of the troops of the Ulster Division (Figs 4 and 5). His images of the men's happy, smiling faces have a spe
cial poignancy, given our knowledge of the carnage to come at
the Somme and other battles. A number of these drawings made at the various Ulster Division training camps were exhib
ited at Belfast City Hall in Christmas week 1916 and were auc
tioned in aid of the Ulster Volunteer Force hospitals. Also
amongst the works on display were portraits of well-known
political figures such as Sir Edward Carson and James Craig, later 1st Viscount Craigavon.
Although this war work brought Conor greater recognition,
he found it difficult to survive financially in Belfast and in early 1921, went to London, possibly hoping to improve his circum
stances. For reasons unknown -
homesickness perhaps -
he stayed
for only three or four months. Though the visit was short, it was
fruitful, for he made contact with a
number of well-known artists and
formed friendships with Augustus John and Sir John and Lady Lavery. Lavery's
5. William CONOR: Bugler, Ulster Division, c.1933. Charcoal, chalk on paper, 55 x 38.9 cm. (Ulster Museum). Conor's skill as a sketcher is evident in this
sensitive study.
support was to prove particularly useful when Conor returned
home, for he recommended that Conor be commissioned to
paint the opening of the first Northern Ireland parliament, an
event which took place on 22 June 1921. The picture, the most
important of Conor's career by that point, hangs in Parliament
Buildings, Stormont.
During the inter-war years, Conor became increasingly well
known in Belfast, Dublin, and London through the exhibitions
of the Belfast Art Society and its successor, the Ulster Academy of Arts; also those of the Royal Hibernian Academy and Royal
Academy. He also ventured further afield, to America during
1926-27, where he held a one-man show in New York and took
part in a group exhibition of works on paper at the Brooklyn
Museum. Most of the paintings he showed in New York were on
the theme of 'Irish Life' -
the everyday scenes of Ulster working
class culture which by then had become his speciality. One of
his best-known examples of the genre is
The Jaunting Car (Fig 13), perhaps the
archetypal image of a Belfast backstreet
during the 'thirties. Whilst not entirely
(Opposite) 6. William CONOR: The Studio Dance. Oil on canvas, 127 x 102 cm. (Ulster Folk and
Transport Museum). The young man playing the melodeon is Conor himself.
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Irish Arts Review
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Scenes of Ulster Life: The Paintings and Drawings of William Conor
7. William CONOR: Shipyard Workers Crossing Queen's Bridge (Men of the Home Front), c.1940. Crayon on paper, 34.5 x 46.8 cm. (Ulster Museum) This is executed in Conor's distinctive drawing technique of wax crayons
scraped with a razor blade, a style he perfected during the 1930s.
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8. William CONOR: Co//ecting Scrap Metal. Crayon on paper, 34.7 x 44.5 cm.
(sight) (Ulster Museum). The collecting of scrap metal such as gates, fences
and household items was an important contribution to the war effort on the Home Front.
9. William CONOR: Evacuation of Children, Great Northern Railway Station,
Belfast, c.1941. Pencil, crayon on paper, 34.5 x 46 cm. (Ulster Museum). This drawing of a crowded scene at a railway station, composed with figures
cut off mid-length in the foreground, has the immediacy of a photograph. Note how the children seem excited and happy, with the exception of the
small child in the right-hand corner.
successful in compositional terms - the figures in the foreground
and the street seem to be on entirely different planes -
the pic
ture's strength lies in its emotional appeal.
The Second World War saw Conor engaged yet again as a
war artist, recording the training of troops and scenes of the
Home Front. The latter subject is particularly well catered for in
the holdings of the Ulster Museum, with works such as Shipyard Workers Crossing Queens Bridge (Men of the Home Front),
Collecting Scrap Metal and Evacuation of Children, Great Northern
Railway Station, Belfast (Figs 7-9). A special exhibition of these
wartime images, including a number commissioned by the
Ministry of Information, was one of the events of Belfast's War
Weapons Week in December 1940. The following August, an
exhibition of his scenes of the Blitz on Belfast - 'Air Raid
Memories' - was held in one of the major stores in town.
Though he undoubtedly welcomed the money he received from
the sale of these wartime work, he hated the war years and
seemed to want to erase them from his memory, according to a
friend's recollections. Oddly, despite this discomfiture, the par
ticipants in many of these scenes radiate good humour; there is
no misery, no tears.
With the 1950s came honours and official recognition. In
1952, he received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) and in
1957, an honorary Master of Arts degree from Queen's
University, in appreciation of his services to art in Northern
Ireland. In this latter year, he also became president of the Royal
Ulster Academy (as the Ulster Academy of Arts had styled itself
since 1950), a position he held until 1964. He continued to
exhibit in Belfast and Dublin until 1967 and died in his native
city on 5 February 1968.
Of his pictures in the Museums and Galleries of Northern
Ireland (MAGNI), there are sixty-four in the Art department of
the Ulster Museum, eleven in the museum's History department
and five in Armagh County Museum, with subjects embracing
military and Home Front scenes, images of working-class life,
townscapes, portraits, and a solitary flower painting. However,
the largest collection of his work -
almost 1,200 pieces - is to be
found in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.6 Only recently
fully catalogued, details are published for the first time in
MAGNI's new concise catalogue of its fine art holdings.7 Most
of the items are figure studies in pencil, many containing images
on both recto and verso. In addition to the human form, there
are a number of other subjects, also in pencil: animal studies,
views of David Allen's workroom, where the young Conor learnt
the trade of lithographer, images from Conor's home life, scenes
of elections, street scenes, and glimpses of men and women at
work. In their depiction of these various themes, the drawings
and studies are of considerable interest both to the art historian
and social historian; indeed, a booklet on their social historical
content will be published shortly.8 There are also several finished
works in oil and crayon, showing people at work and at play,
such as The Launch, The Hurley Players, Lamp-post Swinging and
The Studio Dance (Figs 1, 11, 12, & 6); also political events like
The Twelfth (Fig 10). In all, the collection is a fascinating record
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Irish Arts Review
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Scenes of Ulster Life: The Paintings and Drawings of William Conor
10. William CONOR: The Twelfth. 1918. Oil on canvas, 71.2 x 91.2 cm. (Ulster Folk and Transport Museum). This image of the Twelfth of July procession in Wellington Place, Belfast is executed in the sketchy manner of Conor's drawings, using very broad brushstrokes. King Billy on his white charger can be seen on the banner to the left.
11. William CONOR: The Hurley Players. 1948. Crayon on paper, 50.8 x 61 cm.
(sight) (Ulster Folk and Transport Museum). Conor saw this particular match in
Falls Park in Belfast.
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12. William CONOR: Lamp-post Swinging. 1957. Crayon on paper, 37 x 49 cm.
(Ulster Folk and Transport Museum). Street games like this were a popular pastime in working-class areas of Belfast until the 1950s.
151
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Scenes of Ulster Life: The Paintings and Drawings of William Conor
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13. William CONOR: The Jaunting Car. c.1933. Oil on canvas, 70.9 x 90.9 cm.
(Ulster Museum). Figure compositions were amongst Conor's most popular works.
Jaunting cars were common in Belfast during the 'twenties and 'thirties.
of a life dedicated to art.
As for Conor's preferred subject-matter, his friend, the poet
John Hewitt claimed that it irked him to be categorised as the
painter of working-class life.9 Though he obviously felt a deep affection for the subject
- as his comments at the beginning of
this article indicate -
he wished to be viewed in a more rounded
way and preferred the description 'portraitist, landscapist and
genre painter'. Nevertheless, whilst gifted at portraiture, as the
painting of his mother shows (Fig 3), he was never a leading practitioner: that position, in Belfast, was held by Frank
McKelvey and in Dublin, by such as Dermod O'Brien, Sean O'Sullivan, Sarah Purser, and Hilda Roberts. Furthermore,
as S B Kennedy points out in Irish Art and Modernism, his por traits were often marred by a distracting, overly vigorous brush
work.10 One of his most successful works is his portrait of Dr
Douglas Hyde (University College, Dublin), in which the han
dling of paint is much more restrained than usual and where he
uses the vibrant pinks of the sitter's academic gown to add vital
ity to the image.11
With landscape, his position was also secondary as James
Humbert Craig and Frank McKelvey dominated the genre in
Belfast. Conor made few inroads into this particular field because of the competition. Nonetheless, he could produce some fine work on occasion. Probably the most notable example
is The City Hall under Snow (Fig 14), where the limited range of cool colours of whites and greys evokes the atmosphere of a win
ter's day and where the scene is depicted concisely and without
14. William CONOR: The City Hall under Snow. c. 1920s. Oil on canvas on board, 42.9 x 53.3 cm. (Ulster Museum). In this painting, the cool colours of whites and
greys emphasise the atmosphere of a snow-laden winter's day.
distracting detail. The mood of silence in the picture is almost
poetic. However, his later oils, several of which were of Lagan
scenes, tend to have a flat two-dimensional effect and are not
entirely successful.12
As regards Conor's position in the local art world, his images
of the working classes made him unique amongst artists in the
North; indeed, few painters in the whole of Ireland pursued such
genre themes, with the exception of Jack B Yeats and Paul
Henry, the latter with his peasant subjects. Paul Henry's Achill
paintings were first exhibited in Belfast in 1911.13 John Hewitt, in Judith Wilson's book, speculates that Conor may have seen
Henry's pictures around this time and that this may have awak
ened in him the possibilities of exploring further the Northern 'urban peasant' who featured so strongly in his own
sketchbooks.14 Whatever the case - and probably to Conor's dis
may -
his reputation now rests upon his images of working-class
life in Belfast during the first half of the 20th century. Between 1944 and 1959 Conor used a single-storey building on
the Stranmillis Road, opposite the Ulster Museum gates, as his stu
dio. It is now a restaurant known as Conor, its fagade bearing as a
sign a facsimile of Conor's painting signature writ large. A modest
man by all accounts, Conor would surely have found this amusing.
ElLEEN Black, a Curator of Fine Art in the Ulster Museum, has produced a
number of museum catalogues and edited the recently-revised concise catalogue, Drawings, Paintings and Sculptures: The Catalogue of the Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland, reviewed in this issue.
1 J C Wilson, Conor 1881-1968: The Life and
Work of an Ulster Artist (Belfast 1981). This remains the major study of Conor. Much of
the biographical information is taken from this source.
2 M Anglesea, William Conor: The People's Painter (Belfast 1999). Part of the text of this
booklet was used on the W and G Baird calen dar for 1999, the subject of which was Conor.
3 S B Kennedy, Paul Henry (New Haven and
London 2000), pp.13-14. 4 J Wilson (as note 1), p.3. 5 J Wilson (as note 1), p. 12.
6 The exact figure is 1,193 items.
7 E Black (ed), Drawings, Paintings and
Sculptures: The Catalogue, Museums and
Galleries of Northern Ireland (2000). 8 J Bell, Conor: Drawing from Life (forthcoming).
9 J Wilson (as note l),p.l24. 10 S B Kennedy, Irish Art and Modernism
1880-1950 (Belfast 1991), p.175. 11 S B Kennedy (as note 10), cat no 101, p.315. 12 J Wilson (as note l),p.l25. 13 S B Kennedy (as note 3), pp.44-48. 14 J Wilson (as note l),p.l26.
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