35 / 100
WHYTES
SINCE 1783
,
45
Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (
b.
1932)
IRENE CALVERT MP, 1952
oil on canvas
signed and dated upper right
27 by 20in. (68.58 by 50.80cm)
Provenance:
Commissioned by the sitter;
Thence by descent
Exhibited:
CEMA ‘Basil Blackshaw & Martin McKeown’, Donegall Street Gallery, Belfast,
September 1952
It was following, and partly as a result of this commission, that the artist was
commissioned to paint the then Governor of Northern Ireland, Lord
Wakehurst. Irene Calvert was an enthusiastic patron of Blackshaw and other
young artists in Northern Ireland during the 1950s.
Irene Calvert (1909–2000) was a Northern Irish politician and economist. Born
in Belfast, as Lillian Irene Mercer Earls, she studied at Methodist College,
Belfast. She studied economics and philosophy at Queen’s University, Belfast.
In 1941 she was appointed Chief Welfare Officer for Northern Ireland,
immediately having to organise care for a flood of wartime evacuees.
In 1944, she contested a by-election for the Queen’s University Belfast
constituency. She was unsuccessful but stood again in the Northern Ireland
general election, 1945, as an independent (non-party) candidate, and on this
occasion succeeded in taking a seat at Stormont. She held the seat until she
stood down at the 1953 election.
In Parliament, she avoided the traditional Unionist versus Nationalist
arguments, which she regarded as a distraction from the real task of social
reform, including the passage of the Education Act, 1947. In her resignation
speech, she did however question whether the Northern Irish economy could
thrive while the partition of Ireland continued.
In 1950 Calvert began working at the Ulster Weaving Company as an
economist, and having successfully helped build up their institutional sales
was appointed a managing director. In 1956 she was invited to become a
group chairman at the Duke of Edinburgh’s Study Conference on Industry.
She also served on the Belfast City Chamber of Commerce, becoming its first -
and, to date, only - woman president in 1965–1966. She also served on
Queen’s University’s Senate and Board of Curators, and was active in the Irish
Association. In 1964, she worked as an executive manager with Great
Southern Hotels, a subsidiary of CIE, the Irish Transport Company, with whom
she worked until early 1970. She retired to Dublin where she was an active
supporter of the Irish Labour Party until her death in 2000.
€
3,500-
€
4,500 (£2,800-£3,600 approx)
35
46
Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (
b.
1932)
BERYL RESTING, 1952
gouache on paper
signed and dated lower left; with Dawson Gallery framing label on reverse
15 by 9.80in. (38.10 by 24.89cm)
Provenance:
Collection of Mrs Irene Calvert MP;
Thence by descent
€
2,500-
€
3,500 (£2,000-£2,800 approx)
47
No lot