Lot 49 William Conor,

William Conor RHA RUA ROI 1881-1968 PORTRAIT OF A RED HAIRED GIRL Oil on canvas, 24'' x 20'' (61 x 51cm), signed Provenance: Purchased at Whytes, 21st September 2004 (lot 56), which detailed the following catalogue note: The sitter in this portrait has been variously identified as 'Red-Haired Kitty', 'Lily', 'Miss Y', and 'Mrs T. Walker'. It seems likely that she is actually all of the above. A photograph exists in Conor's papers (now in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum), that would appear to be the basis of the present portrait. It is squared up in preparation for transfer to a larger composition, and on the reverse is written: ''To Billy with best love from Lily''. The same woman appears in a crayon drawing, in exact mirror image to the present work (see Young Woman in Yellow Dress, catalogue no. 78 in the Conor exhibition, Children of Ulster, held at the McClelland Galleries, Belfast, in 1969, illustrated on p. 9 of the catalogue). Judith Wilson traced two further portraits of the same sitter. The first known, simply titled Kitty, was exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London, 1930, and was illustrated on the front cover of Colour magazine (Vol. III, No. 2, December 1930). This work is now in the collection of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. A second portrait of the same woman, this time leaning against a table, was painted circa 1930, and reproduced in The Daily Express, 10 December 1930, where it titled as Mrs T. Walker. It was used to illustrate an article by R. Stephen Williams, for part of a series by him on ''Beauty in Ulster''. Conor was asked to select the representative beauties and paint their portraits, after which Williams interviewed them. The portrait was later exhibited as Red-Haired Kitty at the Royal Academy in London, 1931, and was illustrated in the accompanying catalogue. The following year it appeared on the front of G.F.S. Magazine, along with a short 'puff' by journalist May Cunningham, eulogising the sitter's ''charming and racy'' looks. Conor evidently liked the work too, for he showed it again, this time in Dublin at the 1936 RHA, where it was enigmatically titled ''Miss Y'' and illustrated in a review of the exhibition. The present work was presumably a favourite of the artist's, as gallery owner Nelson Bell recollects that it formerly hung over the fireplace in Conor's dining room in his home on Salisbury Avenue, Belfast. Please see envelope with provenance in it .....