WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2022

64 39 Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016) IRENE CALVERT MP, 1952 oil on canvas signed and dated upper right 27 by 20in. (68.6 by 50.8cm) Frame Dimensions: 34.25 by 27.5in. (87 by 69.9cm) Provenance: Commissioned by the sitter; Thence by descent; Whyte’s, 24 November 2014, lot 45; Private collection 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, LordWakehurst. Irene Calvert (1909–2000) was a Northern Irish politician and economist. Born in Belfast, as Lilian 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 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. €4,000-€6,000 (£3,450-£5,170 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot39