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Raymond Piper ''HRUA HRHA MUniv'' (4 April 1923 – 13 July 2007)Anon: Irish Times 21 July 2007 p16 was British a
botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
and an artist.Hackney, P. 2007. Obituary. ''Irish Naturalists' Journal.'' 28: 393-394


Early life

Raymond Piper was born in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
on 4 April 1923 the son of Frank Piper. At the age of six his family moved to
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
. Piper attended Skegoniel Primary before receiving a general education at
Belfast Royal Academy The Belfast Royal Academy (commonly shortened to ) is the oldest school in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary grammar school in north Belfast. The Academy is one of 8 schools in Northern ...
.(according to the Dictionary of Ulster Biography he was educated at Mercantile College/later known after moving to Jordanstown as Belfast High School).in Piper attended nightclasses at
Belfast School of Art The Belfast School of Art, is a School in thUlster University Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciencesand is physically located at the Belfast campus. Following the results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 Ulster is ranked within ...
for one year, where he was taught by Cornish artist Newton Penprase. For a time he was a teacher at the
Royal School Dungannon The Royal School is a mixed boarding school located in Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was one of a number of 'free schools' created by James I (otherwise known as James VI of Scotland) in 1608 to provide an education to the son ...
. In 1950 Piper won a CEMA travel award which took him to Paris for a year. Piper worked at Belfast shipbuilders
Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
between 1940 and 1946 where he carried sketch books in his pockets to fill in time between jobs. He sketched his fellow workers and pictures of Cave Hill, but he had no interest in capturing ships on paper. Piper joined the
Belfast Naturalists' Field Club The Belfast Naturalists' Field Club is a club of naturalists based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1863, the club was an important part of the education system for Victorian naturalists and worked largely through first-hand field studies ...
in 1946 where he was twice president in 1971–1972 and 1983–1984. He became an Honorary Member in 1990. He took great interest in the flowers of Ireland especially orchids.Crowther, Peter. 2013. ''Citizen Science 150 years of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club.'' National Museums Northern Ireland. In 1947 fellow Belfast Naturalist Richard Hayward asked him to submit his best works to Hayward's publishers. They were impressed and shortly thereafter Piper gave up his engineering apprenticeship to become a professional artist. His main income was as a portrait painter and he included among his subjects several Lord Mayors of London and Belfast.


Artistic career

Piper began a long association with the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1942 when he showed three works '''Dad, ''Sunrise Knockah 1941'', and ''April Day,'' and exhibited a work each in 1944 and 1946, before an offering of two child portraits and a glass case called ''White Godess'' in 1948. Piper showed a portrait of Belfast coroner Dr HP Lowe along with a watercolour landscape at the 1950 annual exhibition after the Ulster Academy of Arts had been granted their Royal Charter. Piper contributed work to the short-lived Ulster literary magazine '' Rann,'' founded by
Roy McFadden Roy McFadden (14 November 1921 – 15 September 1999) was a Northern Irish poet, editor, and lawyer. McFadden's first poem was published before he was thirteen. His earliest influences were from magazines and journals that his Father brought home, ...
and Barbara Edwards (née Hunter) in 1948. Piper began his career in illustrating old Irish buildings and sites of archaeological interest. Many of these drawings were used to illustrate books by fellow member of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, Richard Hayward, such as ''Ulster and the City of Belfast'' (1950), ''Connacht and the City of Galway'' (1952) and ''Munster and the City of Cork'' (1964). The latter publication contained 126 sketches by Piper, drawn on location in Munster in the spring of 1960 when Piper and his botanical friend explored the region together. The ''
Belfast Telegraph The ''Belfast Telegraph'' is a daily newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Independent News & Media. Its editor is Eoin Brannigan. Reflecting its unionist tradition, the paper has historically been "favoured by the Protestant po ...
s book reviewer writes,
"Perhaps the highest praise one can pay these collaborators is that their work is comparable to and in some ways excels Stephen Gywm and Hugh Thomson...Mr Piper contributes some exquisite sketches of the flora of the region which contains a remarkable number of plants and rocks."
Piper also held an exhibition with Richard Hayward at the Glenmachan Tower Hotel in Belfast earlier that year. Speaking of his choice of illustrator for ''Ulster and the City of Belfast'', author Richard Hayward said,
"My choice of this young Belfast artist has turned out to be fortunate even beyond my high expectations and I would like to place on record my warm regard for the cheerful manner in which this young man has ever sought to accomplish the tasks which I set him as well as the deep satisfaction which the brilliance and integrity of his work has brought me."
The foreword to the book was written by
Maurice Walsh Maurice Walsh (2 May 1879 – 18 February 1964) was an Irish novelist, now best known for his short story "The Quiet Man", later made into the Oscar-winning film ''The Quiet Man'', directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Ha ...
, author of the ''Quiet Man.'' The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts awarded Piper a travel scholarship of £50 in 1950 when he had a choice of two destinations, Paris or Vienna. Although Piper rarely exhibited he presented work at International Faculty of Arts in London in 1953. He also displayed three portraits including oils of ex-Belfast Lord Mayor Sir John Harcourt, and Ulster poet John Irvine, at the
Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the RIA, the academy retained the word "Royal" after most of Ireland became in ...
in 1958. In 1953 Piper presented his first solo exhibition at the CEMA Gallery in Belfast. The show was primarily portraits of local luminaries such as the producer and actor
Harold Goldblatt Harold Goldblatt (born Israel Goldblatt, 5 July 1899 – 22 March 1982) was an actor, theatre director and theatre producer from Northern Ireland. He was born in Manchester, England, to Russian Jewish parents, and subsequently moved with his fam ...
, the playwright Patrick Riddell, and Lord Mayor
James Norritt Sir James Henry Norritt (1887 – 21 July 1963) was a Northern Irish businessman who was Lord Mayor of Belfast for the Ulster Unionist Party from 1951 to 1953. His mayoralty made him an ex-officio member of the Senate of Northern Ireland. Norr ...
. The exhibition included none of Piper's recent topographical drawings but did include pastels of happy children and a few pencil drawings of old Belfast commissioned by CEMA for their local collections. Early in 1956 Piper completed a fourteen foot high mural of Christ on the Sea of Galilee, ''The Flying Angel'' for the Belfast Seaman's Mission, where he was to return in 1977 to conduct repairs on the damaged painting. In May 1956 Piper completed a mural commission for the mammal house at
Belfast Zoo Belfast Zoological Gardens (also known as ''Bellevue Zoo'') is a zoo in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is in a relatively secluded location on the northeastern slope of Cavehill, overlooking Belfast's Antrim Road. Belfast Zoo is one of the top ...
. He exhibited at the CEMA gallery in 1957 alongside several of his Ulster contemporaries, all former recipients of CEMA travel bursaries. Piper also contributed a coloured print for the cover of Hayward's ''Border Foray'' in 1957. Piper was commissioned to paint the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Lord Brookeborough on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1958. Piper presented a one-man show at the
Royal Watercolour Society The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...
Galleries, London in 1961. The show comprised 64 works and was opened by one of the subjects, the Lord Mayor of London Bernard Whaley-Cohen. In 1962 Piper hosted a solo exhibition in the Whitla Hall at
Queen's University, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...
. The Coffee Shop at the corner of College Street and Queens Street, Belfast, was the venue for an exhibition of two series of Piper's work in the same year. Piper made several contributions including a double portrait ''Audrey and Barbara'' and the nurseryman ''
Sam McGredy Sam McGredy refers to four generations of Northern Irish rose hybridizers. Sam McGredy I founded the family nursery in 1880. Sam McGredy II focused the nursery on roses in 1895. Sam McGredy III took over in 1926, and was the first to name roses ...
'' to the Ulster Artists exhibition at the Magee Gallery also in 1962. His contemporaries on this occasion were T P Flanagan,
Dan O'Neill Dan O'Neill (born April 21, 1942) is an American underground cartoonist, creator of the syndicated comic strip ''Odd Bodkins'' and founder of the underground comics collective the Air Pirates. Education O'Neill attended the University of Sa ...
, Kenneth Webb, Rowland Hill, Maurice Wilks and
Frank McKelvey Frank McKelvey (3 June 1895 – 30 June 1974) was an Irish painter from Belfast. Early life and education Francis Baird McKelvey, also known as Frank McKelvey, was born 3 June 1895. He was born in Belfast at 31 Woodvale Road. He was bapti ...
. British Railways commissioned Piper to produce a poster in 1962 which promoted the Norfolk Broads. In 1964 Piper was also elected Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, at the same time as
Romeo Toogood Romeo Toogood ''ARCA'' ''HRUA'' (6 May 1902- 11 August 1966) was an Ulster artist and teacher who specialized in landscape painting. Early life Romeo Charles Toogood was born in Belfast on 6 May 1902. He was the son of a stone-carver, Charles ...
, George C Morrison, David Crone, and future President Richard J Croft. He showed a portrait of the Academy's President and Belfast's artistic elderstatesman ''
William Conor William Conor OBE RHA PPRUA ROI (1881–1968) was a Belfast-born artist. 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 ...
'', and ''Oriental Girls'' at the Annual show that year. An open-air exhibition with many of Piper's RUA contemporaries was held at the Shambles Gallery in Hillsborough in August 1964, curated by Patric Stevenson, which exposed Piper's portrait of William Conor to a wider audience. Piper was also present when the Rolling Stones took an overcrowded Ulster Hall by storm in July 1964, with one sketch appearing in the Belfast Telegraph alongside a review of the gig. The Botanic Inn on Belfast's Malone Road was the venue for a joint show with Jack W Gray in 1964. Piper also showed paintings of Short's aircraft at
Farnborough Airshow The Farnborough Airshow, officially the Farnborough International Airshow, is a trade exhibition for the aerospace and defence industries, where civilian and military aircraft are demonstrated to potential customers and investors. Since its fir ...
in the same year. A year later he held his first show in Dublin at the Brown Thomas Little Theatre Gallery. The
Brown Thomas Brown Thomas & Company Limited is a chain of five Irish department stores, located in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Dundrum Town Centre. Part of the Selfridges Group, Brown Thomas is an upmarket chain, akin to Britain's Selfridges stores ...
exhibition comprised 50 portraits and landscapes in pastel, oil and pencil and included a number of sketches previously published in Hayward's ''Munster and the City of Cork''. Piper revisited the Burren in 1968 where he had completed a set of works for Hayward's book on ''Munster and city of Cork'' in 1960''.'' Piper's second visit saw him complete a series of oils on boards for Edwin Taylor and Alan Corkindale, owners of the Gregan's Castle Hotel, which had yet to be completed at the time of his first visit. The paintings originally hanged as panels but were removed during renovation work in the late 1970s when they were framed and encased in glass before their rehanging in the dining room. Piper contributed 120 line and coloured illustrations to Stephen Usherwood's 1968 anthology of Shakespeare's plays ''Shakespeare Play by Play''. Piper planned to write and publish his own book on Irish Orchids with the main aim being to promote the conservation of the thirty varieties of orchids in Ireland. By 1972 he had been writing and illustrating his book for six years. The completed illustrations were shown at an exhibition at Belfast Central Library in September 1972, but the book was never realised in his lifetime. Olympic gold medal winning pentathlete Mary Peters was the subject for a Piper portrait unveiled at the Ulster Arts Club in 1973. Piper's orchid studies showed at the natural history section of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in 1974, and in the same year he was also awarded the
John Lindley John Lindley FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist. Early years Born in Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four children of George and Mary Lindley. George Lindley w ...
medal by the Royal Horticultural Society for his watercolours of Irish orchids. This was the first time that the medal had been awarded in Ireland. The
Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasure ...
also held an exhibition of Piper's botanical works in 1975 as did the
Royal Dublin Society The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) ( ga, Cumann Ríoga Bhaile Átha Cliath) is an Irish philanthropic organisation and members club which was founded as the 'Dublin Society' on 25 June 1731 with the aim to see Ireland thrive culturally and economi ...
in the following year. For his botanical works Piper was awarded a Fellowship of the
Linnaean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...
. In 1975 he was further honoured by his election as an Associate to the Royal Ulster Academy. Piper's sketches of ballet stars including
Margot Fonteyn Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias DBE (''née'' Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet (formerly the Sadler's Wells T ...
,
Rudolph Nureyev Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...
and
Marie Rambert Dame Marie Rambert, Mrs Dukes DBE (20 February 188812 June 1982) was a Polish-born English dancer and pedagogue who exerted great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher. Early years and background Born to a liberal Lithuan ...
went on show at the ''Greater London Picture Exhibition'' in 1977 to mark the Silver Jubilee of reigning monarch
Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...
. Piper had first sketched dancers in the early 1950s when the Marie Rambert troupe visited Belfast's Empire Theatre. He was subsequently invited to sketch backstage when Antoin Dolin brought the
Festival Ballet English National Ballet is a classical ballet company founded by Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin as London Festival Ballet and based in London, England. Along with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet and Scottish B ...
to Ulster. Piper was later to be given access to sketch Nureyev in Covent Garden in 1965. The wife of the Northern Irish Secretary of State Colleen Rees was the curator of a personal selection of works from Ulster Artists hosted at the Leeds Playhouse Gallery in 1976. Piper's work was among 49 artworks from various artists where he was displayed alongside TP Flanagan,
Carolyn Mulholland Carolyn Mulholland '' HRHA'', ''HRUA'' (born 1944) is an Irish sculptor. Life Carolyn Mulholland was born in 1944 in Lurgan, County Armagh. She attended the Belfast College of Art, and in 1965 was awarded the Ulster Arts Club prize for sculp ...
, Joe McWilliams,
Mercy Hunter Mercy Hunter ''HRUA PPRUA ARCA MBE'' (22 January 1910 – 20 July 1989) was a Northern Irish artist, calligrapher and teacher. Hunter was a founding member of the Ulster Society of Women Artists, where she was later to become president and she w ...
, Tom Carr and many others. Piper illustrated Arthur Stringer's 1977 book ''The Experienced Huntsman.'' Piper raised the alarm and then served tea to firefighters in September 1979 after a blaze took hold of a neighbouring property that housed his studio. His studio and works were untouched, and all the occupants of the flat escaped unharmed. In 1987 the
Blackstaff Press The Blackstaff Press is a publishing company in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1971, it publishes printed books on a range of subjects (mainly, but not exclusively, of Irish interest) and, since 2011, has also published e- ...
produced ''Piper's Flowers'', a limited edition that included five of his Irish orchid paintings, and the following year he received the Beck's bursary for outstanding services to botanical illustration. A Piper self-portrait was amongst 15 new exhibits inaugurated to the National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland in a show at the Kneafsey Gallery, Limerick, in spring 1987. In 1991 Piper was elected as an Honorary Academician of the Royal Hibernian Academy. In 1996 the Ulster Museum hosted an exhibition of ''Treasures from the Royal Horticultural Society'' which included Piper's orchids. In 2002 Piper was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts. His interests included music, ballet and reading. Piper is a past recipient of the RUA Gold Medal and the James Kennedy Memorial Award for Portraiture at the RHA.


Death and legacy

Raymond Piper died on 13 July 2007. He was survived by two sisters, a nephew and one niece. Friend and poet
Michael Longley Michael Longley, (born 27 July 1939, Belfast, Northern Ireland), is an Anglo-Irish poet. Life and career One of twin boys, Michael Longley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to English parents, Longley was educated at the Royal Belfast A ...
delivered the eulogy at Piper's funeral at Roselawn Crematorium in Belfast on 18 July 2007. He penned a poem entitled ''The Orchid Man'' specially for the occasion. His work can be found in the collections of Queen’s University, Belfast, Royal Ulster Academy of Arts Diploma Collection, Belfast City Hall, the Ulster Museum,
The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland is a collection of more than 400 self-portraits of Irish artists which is housed in the Kneafsey Gallery at the University of Limerick. The origins of the collection can be found in the purchase of ...
, and the National Railway Museum,York.


References


External links


Raymond Piper Obituary
at www.artscouncil-ni.org *
Examples of Ray Piper's work in public collections
vi
Artuk.orgExamples of Raymond Piper's work in private collections
vi
Rosss.com
*http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/2116 *https://digitalfilmarchive.net/media/spectrum-raymond-piper-and-women-in-1951 {{DEFAULTSORT:Piper, Raymond Botanists from Northern Ireland 1923 births 2007 deaths Painters from Northern Ireland Educators from Northern Ireland Irish male painters Members of the Royal Ulster Academy Members of the Royal Hibernian Academy Artists from Belfast