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The McClelland Collection
14
William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968)
THE SEE-SAW
crayon
signed lower left
13½ x 18½in. (34.29 x 46.99cm)
Provenance:
Collection of George and Maura McClelland
The present lot is almost a mirror image, in terms of subject matter and composition, of The See-Saw
(Botanic Gardens) which sold through these rooms on 10 October 2011 as lot 35.
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) and given the style of dress and
the subject the present work can be dated to this same period.
In the catalogue to the 2006 National Gallery exhibition ‘A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social
Life’, Brendan Rooney wrote on the companion piece - The See-Saw (Bontanic Gardens) included in that
show - and his words would be equally fitting to describe the present example from that same series.
“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 [Conor’s] 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.” 1
A similar study for the present lot was exhibited at the Oriel Gallery’s ‘William Conor Centenary Exhibition’,
8-22 July 1981, catalogue no. 9 (illustrated).
1 Rooney, Brendan, A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life, NGI, Dublin, 2006, p. 119-20
€8000-€10000 (£6840-£8550 approx.)
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