IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 28 September 2026

58 35 William Conor OBE RHA RUA ROI (1881-1968) THE TRIO oil on canvas signed upper right; with John Magee label on reverse 21.50 by 18in. (54.6 by 45.7cm) Frame Size: 26 by 22in. (66 by 55.9cm) Provenance: John Magee, Belfast; Private collection “Conor could not play a musical instrument, but his drawings of pianists, traditional musicians, and concert performers, suggest that he delighted in listening to it” Jonathan Bell, Conor - Drawing from Life 1 The Trio captures three young girls dressed in their ‘Sunday best’ absorbed in melody, each holding a songbook with the most prominent singer in the foreground gazing upward and singing from memory. Light enters the composition through a window in the upper left corner and highlights elements of the figures’ bodies and clothing, lending a devotional quality to the subject while at the same time injecting colour into a muted palette characteristic of the artist’s oeuvre. Conor adds a further musical element to the painting through its composition which flows in an ascending motion, from the lower right quadrant to the upper left as if ascending in pitch as it captures the final “ahhh” of the note. Conor was highly skilled at recording fleeting moments in time with the ephemeral quality of music captured here to great effect. Examples of his passion for music can be seen in the public collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, among them - The Street Singers (catalogue no. IMMA.1554MCCL) and The Accordion Player (IMMA.1679MCCL) - as well as the National Museums of Northern Ireland: Music in the Park, Botanic Gardens, Belfast, 1947 (HOYFM.180.2000), The Concertina Player, Ballyclare, Co. Antrim, 1930 (HOYFM.198.2000) and The Twelfth, Wellington Park Place, Belfast, 1918 (HOYFM.123.2000) which records the city’s annual Orange Order parade musicians. The Trio is a significant and highly accomplished oil on canvas and is likely to have been an exhibition painting though records of same have yet to be traced. However, a sizable work in wax crayon on paper (18.5 by 15.5in.) titled Three Choir Girls depicting a version of the same scene was sold through Whyte’s as lot 79 on 18 February 2003. 2 Adelle Hughes August 2026 1 Bell, Jonathan, Conor - Drawing from Life, Appletree Press, Belfast, 2002, p.63 2 Lot 79 on 18 February 2003, https://www.whytes.ie/art/three-choir-girls/120672/ €18,000-€22,000 (£15,380-£18,800 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot35