conor’s corner
'All my life I have been completely absorbed with affec on in the ac vi es of the Belfast people...Being a Belfast man myself it has been my ambi on to reveal the Spiritual Character of its people in all vigour, in all its senses of life, in all its variety, in all its passion, humanity and humour...'
About William Conor
The public sculpture at Conor’s Corner on the Shankill Road/Northumberland Road marks the work of the celebrated Belfast painter William Conor OBE RUA RHA ROI PRUA (1881-1968), who was born in nearby For ngale Street on the 9th May 1881 to a riveter/wrought iron worker. His music teacher Louis Mantell no ced his talent and commended him to the Belfast Government School of Art (later Belfast College of Art) which he a ended from 1894 to 1904. Conor subsequently worked as a lithographer and commercial poster ar st at David Allan & Sons Ltd. for five years. In 1910 he became member of the Belfast Arts Society and subsequently served on the commi ee. Around this me he changed his name from the anglicised ’Connor’ to ‘Conor’ and, while being deeply rooted in working-class loyalism, he became closely associated with the evolving Cel c Revival movement of the me.
'Conor (originally 'Connor') was a working-class Protestant who had Gaelicized his name in response to his encounter with the Cel c Revival in Belfast at the start of the century.' (Barber, 2013)
During World War I, he painted scenes in ammuni on factories and soldiers leaving Belfast for the front. In this period, he also spent me working on the Blasket Islands, Co. Kerry and in Paris. While living in London in the 1920s, he was close to John Lavery and Augustus John and the Café Royal circle. His work developed rapidly during this period and he consolidated his unique style. In 1921 he received his first major commission to paint the opening of the Northern Ireland Parliament. His recogni on grew and when the Belfast Arts Society transformed into the new Ulster Academy of Arts, he was elected as one of the first nine academicians and shortly a er became the first Irish ar st to become member of the Royal Society of Oil Painters. Since 1938 he was an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), Dublin and became full member in 1946. From 1957-1964 he served as President of the Royal Ulster Academy. During his prolific working life, Conor occupied various studios in Belfast, including one in Chichester Street and his purpose built studio in Stranmillis opposite the Ulster Museum, now the ‘Conor’ restaurant. More than 160 of his pain ngs were brought together for a large retrospec ve in Belfast in 1964, when he also received a honorary degree from Queens University, Belfast. William Conor died on 5th February 1968 a er a fall at his home in Salisbury Street, aged 86.
According to his close friend, the writer and poet John Hewi , Conor considered himself a ’portrai st, landscapist and genre painter' rather than 'the painter of working class life’. His unique, vibrant style is characterised by the happiness and joyfulness of his subjects, which sets his work dis nctly apart from other social realist painters of the period such as Käthe Kollwitz.
'As regards Conor's posi on in the local art world, his images of the working classes made him unique among ar sts in the North; indeed, few painters in the whole of Ireland pursued such genre themes, with the excep on of Jack B. Yeats and Paul Henry...' (Black, 2002)
Further Reading: Barber, F.; Art in Ireland Since 1910, London; Reak on Books, 2013 Black, E. (contributor); Irish Arts Review Yearbook, 2002 Shoddy, T.; Dic onary of Twen eth Century Irish Ar sts, 2002 Wilson, J. C.; Conor 1881-1968: The Life and Work of an Ulster Ar st, Belfast, 1981