William Conor

William Conor – Shankill Artist

William was one of us! Born on May 9, 1881 in No 5 Fortingale Street. He was one of six children born to William and Mary Connor (nee Wallace). Fortingale Street, which was part of the Hammer, ran from Agnes Street, off the Shankill Road to the Old Lodge Road. How fitting that Conor’s corner is on the corner of Agnes Street and the Shankill!

His father, William Connor, was a tinsmith and sheet-metal worker, who later became a gas fitter. He was Educated at the Clifton Park central national school, where his artistic abilities were noticed by his music teacher, Louis Mantell. Louis noticed his talent in his chalk drawings and arranged for him to attend the Belfast government school of design, College of Arts.

On finishing his studies at the College of Art he became apprenticed to David Allen and Sons a firm of lithographers where he worked in the poster design department. Although he had become skilled in a trade, he did not want to spend his life working in a lithographic firm.

Through his work in the poster design department he developed an enthusiasm for using crayons on a textured surface. This would become a characteristic feature of his later drawings. In these early years he first started recording images of Belfast life. often sketched from behind a folded newspaper in the street. Influenced by the Gaelic revival, in the years 1907–9 he signed his name in several different ways such as Liam and Liam Conor; in later years he signed himself simply Conor.

He began painting professionally, spending time in Craigavad, Co. Down, the Blasket Islands in Co. Kerry, Dublin and Donegal. He eventually made his way to Paris. While in Paris he started studying the Dutch and Italian masters and learning the craft of representational painting. He found it difficult to survive financially in Paris and returned home, to Belfast, after six months.

During the early part of the twentieth century, William was often seen in and around the Shankill area leaning on lamp posts or shop fronts sketching the local people going about their daily routines.  He loved to capture the clothing and the facial expressions of those around him.

Conor would sketch on anything he could find, sometimes it was a newspaper or if he was lucky a scrap of plain brown paper.  He would use ink, pencil or a piece of charcoal and would later transfer them to oil and board when he could afford it.

On the outset of the First World War William was commissioned by the British Government to record, through his work the life of the British soldier and the local people.

He began drawing the everyday activities of munitions workers and soldiers in Ulster. His pictures mostly showed soldiers in training and various scenes from the home front, including the work of women in munitions factories and hospitals. He was also known for his versions of the tinkers and shipyard workers. These paintings were exhibited and subsequently, in 1916, auctioned for the Ulster Volunteer Patriotic Fund to raise funds for the Ulster Volunteer Hospital.

After the war Williams work was compared to the great L S Lowry, of Matchstick Men fame.  Conor was awarded the O.B.E in 1952, just one of his many awards and titles .

He once wrote – ‘My aim has been to seek for beauty in those places where it is not often sought, in crowded thoroughfares, in the factory and in the shipyard”.

Later in life, Conor who was always proud of his Unionist and Presbyterian upbringing changed the way Connor was spelled and removed one of the N letters to become Conor, to lessen some of the Gaelic influence to his surname.

In 1921 Conor moved to London, where he became acquainted with, among others, Sir William Orpen (qv), Sir John Lavery (qv), and Augustus John. He became a member of the Chelsea Arts Club, and contributed four paintings to the National Portrait Society as part of its spring exhibition in 1921. His friendship with Lavery was significant; through him Conor received a commission to paint the opening of the first Northern Ireland parliament in June 1921. He went on to exhibit with a variety of influential bodies, including the Royal Academy, the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris, and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. In 1922 ‘The twelfth’, executed c.1918, was shown in the Galerie Barbazanges in Paris, under the title ‘Le cortège Orangiste à Belfast’, as part of the World Congress of the Irish Race. Conor was represented at the Paris salon in 1923 and the following year he had a successful exhibition at the St Stephen’s Green Gallery, Dublin.

In 1926 Conor travelled to Philadelphia and New York, where, during his nine-month stay, he received numerous commissions for portraits and had work shown in the Babcock Galleries, the Brooklyn Art Gallery, and the American Irish Historical Society. In 1932 he designed the costumes for the principals in the Pageant of St Patrick, which marked the 1,500th anniversary of the saint’s coming to Ireland. That year also saw the unveiling of his mural ‘Ulster past and present’ at the Belfast Municipal Museum and Art Gallery; measuring 2.8 by 7.4 metres, it was at the time the largest mural in the country. During the second world war he was again appointed an official war artist and his work was represented at the exhibition of war artists at the National Gallery, London, in 1941. His book The Irish scene was published in 1944, and though it sold well, the subsequent bankruptcy of his publishers meant that Conor received no royalties. He also provided the illustrations for books by Lynn Doyle, the pseudonym of his friend Leslie Montgomery (qv).

Although he is best known for his depictions of the everyday life of people in his native Belfast, in which he attempted to capture the ‘flash of humour which lightens their daily toil’, Conor also produced landscapes and portraits.

Conor closed his long-established studio on Stranmillis Road in 1960 but continued to exhibit, notably with the Bell Gallery in 1964, 1966, and 1967.

The first Irishman to become a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, he was a founder member of the Ulster Academy (later the Royal Ulster Academy), and from 1957 to 1964 served as its president. In 1938 he became an associate member of the RHA, and in 1947 he received full membership. He was awarded the OBE in 1952, an honorary MA from QUB in 1957, and a civil-list pension in 1959.

Auctioneer Karl Bennett once said, “William Conor is, beyond doubt, one of our most illustrious artists, best known for his lively and insightful studies of ordinary people and everyday life in Ulster.  The warmth with which he evidently viewed his subjects, coupled with his lively and instantly recognisable style, have earned him a unique place as our ‘People’s Painter’.

Sadly, having never married, William died of hypothermia after falling at his home in Salisbury Avenue in Belfast on 5th February 1968 and is laid to rest at Carnmoney Cemetery.

His work is represented in galleries and institutions throughout Ireland and Great Britain, including the Ulster Museum (which has over 50 of his Art Works on show), Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, the Imperial War Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Today Williams work can fetch upwards of £50,000 for a painting and a 6 x 4 sketch on newspaper can fetch around the £800 mark.

© by permission of the Conor Estate. Photo credit: National Museums NI

Portrait of a Man in a Hat (Self Portrait)

https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Connor+artist – to see more of his work