Beschreibung:

WILLIAM CONOR RUA RHA (1884-1968) The Jaunting Car (No. 1) Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 50.5cms (24 x 20'') Signed Provenance: From the McClelland Collection and on loan to IMMA from 1999-2004 Exhibited: City of Bradford Corporation Art Gallery 1940 Ulster Artists Exhibition, Adam's at Clandeboye inaugural exhibition, The AVA Gallery, Co. Down, April 2010, cat. no. 6 A Celebration of Irish Art & Modernism, The Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, June- September 2011, Cat. No 6 Literature: The Hunter Gatherer - The Collection of George and Maura McClelland, 2005, IMMA, Dublin, full page illustration p35 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 of London 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 and later was president of the Academy. 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. This is the original version of the work by the same title in the Ulster Museum Collection. This is the original study for a larger work of the same title in the Ulster Museum collection, the latter being a donation to the museum by the Thomas Haverty Trust-who acquired it from the 1933 RHA exhibition-in 1936. Conor worked for many years in a lithographic studio and the techniques he learned there were often incorporated into his later drawings and paintings. The handling of the paint and treatment of the shadows in The Jaunting Car well illustrates these influences. As a recorder of daily life in Belfast 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' (Hewitt, 'Painting and Sculpture in Ulster', Sam Hanna Bell (ed.), The Arts in Ulster, 1951, p. 88), while twenty years later Kenneth Jamison saw him as 'a kind of Irish Daumier, but without the bitter satirical edge; certainly an impressionist of sorts whose affection for his subjects saved him from becoming doctrinaire?' (Jamison, 'Painting and Sculpture', M. Longley (ed.), Causeway: The Arts in Ulster, 1971, p. 44). These sentiments are clear to be seen in this fine composition, representing a way of life that has long disappeared. Dr. S.B. Kennedy WILLIAM CONOR RUA RHA (1884-1968) The Jaunting Car (No. 1) Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 50.5cms (24 x 20'') Signed Provenance: From the McClelland Collection and on loan to IMMA from 1999-2004 Exhibited: City of Bradford Corporation Art Gallery 1940 Ulster Artists Exhibition, Adam's at Clandeboye inaugural exhibition, The AVA Gallery, Co. Down, April 2010, cat. no. 6 A Celebration of Irish Art & Modernism, The Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, June- September 2011, Cat. No 6 Literature: The Hunter Gatherer - The Collection of George and Maura McClelland, 2005, IMMA, Dublin, full page illustration p35 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 of London 1941. He spent a number of years