William Conor

Celebrated for his warm and sympathetic portrayals of working-class life in Ulster, William Conor studied at the Government School of Design in Belfast in the 1890s.

Born in 5 Fortingale Street, which ran from Agnes Street, off the Shankill Road to the Old Lodge Road in north Belfast, the son of a wrought-iron worker, his artistic talents were recognized at the early age of ten when a teacher of music, Louis Mantell, noticed the merit of his chalk drawings and arranged for him to attend the College of Art.

[1] On finishing his studies at the College of Art he became apprenticed to David Allen and Sons a firm of lithographers where he worked in the poster design department.

Sometime during 1912 /1913 Conor made his way to Paris, studying the Dutch and Italian masters and learning the craft of representational painting.

[2] Following the outbreak of WWI in 1914 William Conor was commissioned by the British government to produce official pictorial records of soldiers and munitions workers.