Lot 306: Rowel Boyd Friers MBE PRUA (1920-1998) ""Josiah:- There's A Coupla Quare Wans' In The Loaner Cud Be Government Men Or Just Lukin' for a Funeral Tae Go Tae""," and five other original cartoons, circa 1980s

Rowel Boyd Friers MBE PRUA (1920-1998) ""Josiah:- There's A Coupla Quare Wans' In The Loaner Cud Be Government Men Or Just Lukin' for a Funeral Tae Go Tae""," and five other original cartoons, circa 1980s pen and ink drawings (5) (framed)
all signed lower right bar one lower left
27 by 38cm., 10.7 5 by 15in.
2/5: Inscribed ""I'm sure, effendi, you must be miss John Wayne"", 3/5: Inscribed ""Richard Harris & John Hurt in the Field, Gan tae see thon actor fellas doin' a bit of honest toil for a change"", 4/5 Inscribed, ""May I remind the accused that he is in a Court of Law"", 5/5 bears no inscription but depicts Saddam Hussein lighting a grenade decorated as a globe. Rowel Friers, cartoonist, illustrator, painter and lithographer grew up in the Lagan Village area of Belfast and was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to the Belfast lithographic firm S. C. Smith and Co., while studying at the Belfast College of Art from until 1942. In the 1940s he began publishing his cartoons, concentrating on a particularly political subject matter at the beginning of 'the troubles' in the late 1960s. His work appeared in publications such as Punch, The Radio Times, The Sunday Independent and The Irish Times among others. Friers was also an important figure in the Ulster Watercolour Society. His oil paintings hang in the National Portrait Gallery, The Gallery of the Ulster Museum and many other collections. He illustrated in a variety of books, including an American edition of the works of W.B. Yeats. He was awarded the MBE in 1977. He was president of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts from 1993 to 1997.