WHYTE'S IRISH ART 28 MAY 2018

37 William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968) EXERCISING THE GREYHOUNDS, c.1920s-1930s crayon and oil on paper signed twice lower left 28.75 by 23.75in. (73 by 60.3cm) Provenance: Collection of Rita Whittle, Maryville, Tennessee; Her auction, 27 January 2018, Case Auctions, Knoxville Tennessee; Private collection This lively scene of greyhounds and their handlers is an unusual subject in Conor’s oeuvre. The six figures (three human, three canine) fill the canvas with urgent movement, their positions suggesting that they are about to emerge from the picture at any moment. The matt surface produced by the mix of crayon and oil paint seems at odds with the energy of the scene depicted, yet it is typical of Conor’s technique. The artist first used wax crayon while working as a commercial lithographer in Belfast and continued to incorporate the medium into drawings and paintings throughout his career. The son of a Belfast metal worker, Conor attended the Belfast School of Art and spent a brief period in Paris prior to the outbreak of WorldWar One. During the conflict, he worked as an official war artist recording munition works, army camps and the training exercises of the Ulster Division. Through the late 1910s and early 1920s, Conor became more of an established name in Irish and British artistic circles, showing regularly in group exhibitions in London, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow, as well as numer- ous solo exhibitions in Dublin and New York. Conor exhibited a painting titled Exercising Greyhounds on two occasions: at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, London in 1934 (catalogue no. 157) and at the Royal Hibernian Academy (cat., no. 200), however it is unclear whether either of these was the present work, or a similar painting sold through Christies in 2007, for £90,000 (The Irish Sale, 10 May 2007, lot 118). The more unusual form of signature, with a broad ‘W’ resting over the artist’s surname appears on a small number of paintings from the 1920s and 1930s. Although Conor completed numerous official portrait commissions, he is best known for his depictions of everyday and working-class life in Belfast, encompassing scenes of work and leisure. Depictions of animals or sporting scenes are unusual; however a series of works showing horse racing, now in the col- lection of the National Museums Northern Ireland, contain the same sense of movement and excitement captured in Exercising Greyhounds. Dr Kathryn Milligan April 2018 €15,000-€20,000 (£13,160-£17,540 approx.) Click Here for Large Images & To Bid Lot 37