CHATSWORTH SUMMER FINE ART SALE May 28th & 29th 2024

6 E arlier last year, the visual arts community sadly learned of the death of Nelson Bell, one of Ireland’s leading gallerists. During the second half of the 20th Century, his Belfast gallery exhibited quality academic works by Ireland’s most celebrated artists. As an Art Dealer he was widely respected for his validations and for his integrity. Born in Belfast as the only child of Herbert and Edith Bell of Dunmurry, Co. Antrim, he spent his early years, during the Second World War, on the family farm near Glenavy. In 1948, the family returned to Dunmurry so that his father could join his three brothers in their linen business. Nelson’s father was a prolific reader, a collector of rare Irish books and a life long member of the Linenhall Librarywhere hewas an activemember of the management committee. A love of books permeated the Bell Dunmurry home. Nelson attended Friends School, Lisburn until he was sixteen years old. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a house furnisher in Belfast but left in 1961 to manage the revamped John Magee Ltd. Gallery. Located in Donegall Square West, this gallery was established in 1934 and in the 1930’s showed, amongst other works, the painter John Luke and the sculptor George McCann. While working there, Nelson met many artists, including Daniel O’Neill, who contributed to Magee Gallery exhibition entitled “Selected Paintings” in August 1962. In 1964, with the experience gained, Nelson opened his own Bell Gallery on the ground floor of his family’s linen warehouse at 3 Alfred Street, Belfast. Historically, the Bell family had an informed and deep interest in pictures, and they went regularly to auctions where they bought a Walter Osborne painting which is now in the Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. Therefore, Nelson had encouragement and support at home for his risky undertaking as a young man. Additionally, his natural caution prompted him to proceed with care. His first Alfred Street exhibition opened on 7th December 1964 and consisted of drawings and watercolours by William Conor. This was followed by another Conor exhibition in 1966 and a third exhibition in 1967. These were the last solo exhibitions by William Conor before his death in 1968. Probably the most popular and representative Belfast painter of his generation. Conor was much loved for his depiction of Belfast people at work and a play. Although these popular exhibitions sold well, the low prices sought by Conor resulted in modest profit for the gallery and in the long European tradition, a picture framing unit helped sustain the gallery’s financial liability. No subsidy from the public purse was ever sought or provided. Exhibitions followed by Sean Keating (1965), Greta Bowen, Seamus O’Colmain, Eric Patton, James Macintyre, Tom Carr, Kenneth Webb, Basil Blackshaw, John Bratby and others, which established the gallery’s reputation for exhibiting renowned, academic and traditional paintings. Before Civil Commotion erupted in 1969, local collectors and visual art enthusiasts, on Saturday mornings visited four central Belfast Art Galleries, all within walking distance of one another. There was the New Gallery on the Grosvenor Road, the Arts Council Gallery on Chichester Street, the McClelland Gallery on May Street, and the Bell Gallery on Alfred Street. All showed works by living Irish artists and occasionally artists from abroad. Unfortunately, in the early Seventies when ‘The Troubles’ took hold, people avoided visiting the City Centre. After a bomb was delivered to The Bell Gallery door, although it was defused, Nelson moved his gallery to 2, Malone Road, beside the Ulster Museum and opposite Queen’s University. At this new location clients parked easily and safely and the exhibition programme continued. Collectors also viewed and bought paintings from stock which included the main protagonists of 20th Century landscape painting in Ireland, ie. Paul Henry, J.H. Craig, Frank McKelvey, Charles Lamb and others. Then in 1990, the Bell Gallery moved a little further out of town, to 13 Adelaide Park, a large handsome Victorian detached red brick house with a front and back garden and outbuildings ideally suited for the relocated framing workshop. At the front of the house, two large reception rooms became gallery spaces and the business of exhibiting and trading continued. New artists joined the team, amongst them, Neil Shawcross and Hector McDonnell, whose mother, the sculptor Angela Antrim, had presented an exhibition of her drawings at the Bell Gallery in 1977. The rest of the house was the Bell home until the family moved once again to Co. Antrim, to Randalstown. There Nelson continued his positive and energetic role, encouraging an interest in Irish Painting. In semi-retirement he pursued his meticulous research and imposed order on his extensive gallery correspondence and records, making them ready for donation to NIVAL, which is housed at the National College of Art. Nelson’s leisure time enthusiasm was for holidays in exotic locations. Forty years ago, a planned trip to Sri Lanka was cancelled because of the civil war there but more recently a visit to the Bahamas was enjoyed. Nelson will be missed by artists, by his many friends and especially by Clover, his wife of almost fifty years, his constant and ardent supporter of his gallery endeavours. Brian Ferran, September 2023 James Nelson Bell (Born 11th June 1941 – Died 10th April 2023) Mr. Nelson Bell of the Bell Gallery with the Artist William Conor