John Lavery — The Belfast Boy Who Painted Kings

Irish Artist · 1856–1941

John Lavery

The Belfast boy who became painter to kings — and whose wife's face watched over Irish banknotes for fifty years.

Shop the Lavery Collection

Part of our full Irish Art Prints collection.

The Green Sofa by Sir John Lavery

The Green Sofa — the intimate, sunlit domesticity that made Lavery beloved.

The Story

Few Irish lives travelled further than John Lavery's. He was born over a Belfast public house and orphaned as a boy; he died a knight of the realm, friend to prime ministers and film stars, with his paintings hanging in the great galleries of the world. In between, he became one of the most fashionable portrait painters alive — and, quietly, one of the most important Irishmen of his age.

He was born on 20 March 1856 in Belfast, the son of a wine and spirit merchant. His father drowned when John was three, and his mother died soon after. Raised by an uncle near Moira, Co. Down, he was sent to Glasgow at fifteen. There, working by day in a photographer's studio, he taught himself to paint, studied at the Haldane Academy, and then at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he absorbed the fresh, light-filled naturalism of French plein-air painting.

Back in Scotland he became a leading figure of the Glasgow School — the "Glasgow Boys" who dragged British painting into the modern age. His break came in 1888, when he was chosen to paint Queen Victoria's state visit to the Glasgow International Exhibition, a vast group portrait that made his name. He moved to London and never looked back, becoming the society portraitist of the era, painting royalty, politicians, and beauties.

In 1909 he married Hazel Martyn, a strikingly beautiful Irish-American painter thirty years his junior. She became his great muse. When the Irish Free State needed an emblem of Ireland for its first banknotes, it was Lavery's portrait of Hazel — as a wistful Cathleen Ní Houlihan — that was chosen; her face appeared on Irish currency until 1975. The Laverys were more than artists: during the 1921 Treaty negotiations, they hosted the Irish delegation at their London home, and John painted the men who made the modern Irish state.

He was an official war artist in the First World War and was knighted in 1918. A generous patriot, in 1929 he gave major bodies of work to the Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. He returned to Ireland in his final years and died on 10 January 1941, aged eighty-four. His work, long in the public domain, spans Belfast to Tangier, Venice to the Riviera — the record of a truly Irish life lived on a global stage.

Timeline

  • 1856 — Born 20 March in Belfast; orphaned young, raised near Moira, Co. Down.
  • 1871 — Moves to Glasgow at fifteen; studies at the Haldane Academy.
  • early 1880s — Studies at the Académie Julian, Paris; embraces French plein-air painting.
  • 1880s — A leading light of the Glasgow School, the "Glasgow Boys."
  • 1888 — Paints Queen Victoria's Glasgow visit; launches his society career; moves to London.
  • 1909 — Marries Hazel Martyn, his muse and model.
  • 1914–18 — Official war artist; knighted in 1918.
  • 1921 — The Laverys host the Anglo-Irish Treaty delegation in London; he paints its figures.
  • 1928 — His portrait of Hazel as Ireland appears on the new Irish banknotes — in use until 1975.
  • 1929 — Donates major works to the Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Gallery.
  • 1941 — Dies 10 January, aged 84.

Where He Painted

No Irish painter roamed further — click a pin to see the work he made there, from the Antrim coast to Tangier, Venice and the Riviera.

Island Magee · Tangier · Venice · Cap d'Ail — a life painted across the world.

Featured Works

View all Lavery prints

Collector's Guide

Start with The Green Sofa — the intimate, light-filled domesticity that defines his most loved work. Then follow him abroad, to the sunlit scenes of Tangier and Venice. His leisure scenes, like the tennis of Played!!, capture a whole vanished world of Edwardian elegance — the range of Ireland's greatest society painter.

The Lavery Lover's Gift Guide

Three ways into his world, at three price points.

Discover Similar Artists

William Orpen — his great rival among Irish society portraitists. · Frederic William Burton — master of Irish Romanticism. · Mainie Jellett — the modernist who came after.

Or browse the full Irish Art Prints collection.