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Portrait, Walter A. Mulligan ARCA (1861-1919), 'William Kirby Sullivan'
Painting in oil on canvas, framed, of William K. Sullivan (President, Queen's College, Cork, 1873-1890).
Ref: UCCHS.Portrait002 © University College Cork
Portrait, William Kirby Sullivan. Walter A. Mulligan ARCA, English. 1907. Oil on canvas. University College Cork.
Dr Sullivan (1822-1890) is seated, wearing an academic gown and holding a sheet of paper. In the background left some books and papers can be seen on a desk. This is a posthumous portrait.
Artist: Walter Andrew Mulligan ARCA (Madeley, Shropshire, England 1861-12 January 1919 Cork), English
More about the artist
Walter Andrew Mulligan was born in Madeley, Shropshire, England. An artist as well as a teacher, he was an Associate of the Royal College of Art (ARCA). In 1890 he was appointed Headmaster of the Cork School of Art [Strickland, vol. 2, p.656]. Two years later, he married Mary Ann O'Farrell in 1892 in Birmingham. In the 1911 Census of Ireland, he described his occupation as "Head Master School of Art and Artist Portrait Painter". He died, aged 59, at Cork on 12 January 1919 from cancer.
Mulligan was a member of the Guild of Irish Art Workers and he sat also on the Munster committee of Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland and encouraged students to participate in their events [Ryan, Made in Cork]. A posthumous exhibition of some of his works was held in November 1922 [Cork Examiner, Saturday, 18 November 1922, p.5]: "Many of his portraits of prominent citizens are well known and reveal a thorough and masterful spirit in painting. In landscape he exhibits the same fidelity to nature as well as conscientious attention to detail. His pictures of the mountainous districts of Cork and Kerry and Pretty Ballyshannon [County Donegal],the home of the poet [William Allingham (1824-1899)], are attractive examples of the picturesque in our own country. Several find rendering of the beauty of North Wales recall a sketching ground favoured by many celebrated artists. A few studies of Continental scenery, still life group, and an important flower study, deserve attention for their unusual excellence."
Mulligan's portrait of John O’Mahony (first Curator of Crawford Art Gallery) is in the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (CAG.0525); two other of his portraits (both dated 1909) are in Chipping Norton Town Hall, Oxfordshire, England.
Read more about William K. Sullivan here.
Sources
1901 and 1911 Censuses of Ireland
General Register Office, England, 1892, Marriages, Birmingham, vol. 6d, page 319
Irishgenealogy.ie: death of artist at Cork
Ryan, Vera, Made in Cork: The Arts and Crafts Movement 1880s-1920s (Cork: Crawford Art Gallery, 2017)
Strickland, Walter G., A Dictionary of Irish Artists, Volume 2 L to Z (Dublin: Maunsel & Co., 1913), p.656
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