John Lavery

Jonh Lavery was born in inner North Belfast, on 20 March 1856 and baptised at St Patrick's Church, Belfast. He was the son of Henry Lavery and Margaret Lavery née Donnelly. Henry Lavery drowned, in the sinking of the packet ship Pomona, April 1859, off Co. Wexford, Ireland, en route for New York, and his widow died not long after. The orphaned John Lavery, at times with his sister Jane Lavery, later Callaghan, moved between Ireland and Scotland. He attended Haldane Academy in Glasgow in the 1870s. In 1878, he set up his own studio which was razed in a fire in the following year. With a £300 insurance pay-out, he spent a year studying at Heatherley's School in London. Lavery continued his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1880s. He returned to Glasgow and was associated with the Glasgow School. William Burrell, a wealthy shipowner, was a faithful patron of Scottish artists including Joseph Crawhall II, with whom Lavery studied. In 1888, he was commissioned to paint the state visit of Queen Victoria to the Glasgow International Exhibition. This launched his career as a society painter and he moved to London soon after. The same year Lavery’s sister Jane, who in 1880 had married John Callaghan, a pawnbroker, drowned herself in the River Clyde. Lavery was to paint a Posthumous Portrait of Jane Lavery towards the end of his life (1935). In 1896, William Burrell commissioned Lavery to paint a portrait of his sister Mary Burrell. This portrait was exhibited widely and is considered one of Lavery's finest works. Another portrait of Mrs. Burrell was altered to become the "Red Rose" portrait of Hazel Lavery.

In his memoir, Lavery acknowledged Burrell's patronage. From 1910, he painted portraits of notable subjects including Winston Churchill, H. H. Asquith, Lord Derby, and the Irish politicians John Redmond and Edward Carson. He also painted a number of naval pictures of the fleet at Scapa Flow, which he presented to the Imperial War Museum. In London, Lavery became friendly with James McNeill Whistler and was clearly influenced by him. Like William Orpen, Lavery was appointed an official artist in the First World War. Ill health, however, prevented him from travelling to the Western Front. A serious car crash during a Zeppelin bombing raid also kept him from fulfilling this role as a war artist. He remained in Britain and mostly painted boats, aeroplanes and airships. During the war years, he was a close friend of the Asquith family and spent time with them at their Sutton Courtenay Thames-side residence, painting their portraits and idyllic pictures like Summer on the River (Hugh Lane Gallery). After the war he was knighted and in 1921 he was elected to the Royal Academy. His work was also part of the art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics, the 1928 Summer Olympics, and the 1932 Summer Olympics. In the late 1920s, he selected the coral blue and silver colour scheme for the Empress Ballroom on the Clyde-built liner Empress of Britain. During this time, he and his wife, Hazel, were tangentially involved in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. They gave the use of their London home to the Irish negotiators during the negotiations leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. After Michael Collins was assassinated, Lavery painted Michael Collins, Love of Ireland, now in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in Dublin. In 1923 Lavery was commissioned by the newly established Irish Free State to design its new paper curren