Lot 233: St George Hare RI ROI (1857-1933) PORTRAIT OF A

St George Hare RI ROI (1857-1933) PORTRAIT OF A LADY WITH AMBER BEADS oil on canvas signed upper left 61 by 46cm., 24 by 18in. Born in Limerick, St George Hare's father was a dentist from Ipswich, Suffolk, who married the daughter of his employer, St George Freeman, from Waterford. His uncle, Jabez Hare, was an artist who died at the tender age of seventeen; a tablet was erected to his memory in the town of Ipswich, as "a record of early talent and worth". St George Hare studied at the Limerick School of Art for three years under Nicholas A. Brophy, before moving to London to study at the Royal College of Art, South Kensington. He first exhibited at the RHA in 1881 and at the RA in 1884. Subjects included portraits, landscape, still life and - surprising for an Irish academic artist of the period - exotic nudes. One such was donated to the National Gallery in Victoria, whilst a carefully modelled still life of fish hangs in the Limerick City Gallery. Hare also exhibited regularly at the ROI and the RI, as well as with the Chelsea Arts Club, of which he was a founder member. Sir Hugh Lane included his work in the London Guildhall exhibition of Irish painters in 1906 and his work was also exhibited regularly at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool and the Manchester City Art Gallery (see Snoddy, pp. 224-5).