{{Short description|British botanist and artist (1923–2007)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Raymond Piper''' ''HRUA HRHA MUniv'' (4 April 1923 – 13 July 2007)<ref name="anon 07">Anon: Irish Times 21 July 2007 p. 16</ref> was a British botanist and an artist.<ref name="Hackney 07">Hackney, P. 2007. Obituary. ''Irish Naturalists' Journal.'' '''28''': 393–394</ref>
{{Infobox artist | honorific_suffix = HRUA HRHA | birth_date = 4 April 1923 | death_date = 13 July 2007 (aged 84) | education = Self-taught | known_for = Portraiture & botanical prints }}
== Early life == Raymond Piper was born in London on 4 April 1923 the son of Frank Piper.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Dolman|first=Bernard|title=Who's who in art|publisher=The Art Trade Press Ltd|year=1970|isbn=0900083026|location=London|pages=434|oclc=1089596913}}</ref> At the age of six his family moved to Belfast.<ref name=":9" /> Piper attended Skegoniel Primary before receiving a general education at Belfast Royal Academy.(according to the Dictionary of Ulster Biography he was educated at Mercantile College/later known after moving to Jordanstown as Belfast High School).<ref>{{Cite news|date=3 August 1977|title=Lord Mayor and artist found much in common|page=1|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.org|access-date=5 March 2021}}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
Piper attended nightclasses at Belfast School of Art for one year, where he was taught by Cornish artist Newton Penprase.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web|date=2 August 2007|title=Raymond Piper: Remembering one of Northern Ireland's best known artists|url=https://www.culturenorthernireland.org/features/visual-arts/raymond-piper|access-date=5 March 2021|website=Culture Northern Ireland |last1=Ireland |first1=Culture Northern }}</ref> For a time he was a teacher at the Royal School Dungannon.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Anglesea|first=Martyn|title=Royal Ulster Academy of the Arts Diploma Collection|publisher=Royal Ulster Academy|year=2000|isbn=0-900903-54-6|location=Belfast, Northern Ireland|pages=196}}</ref> In 1950 Piper won a CEMA travel award which took him to Paris for a year.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Hewitt|first=John|title=Art in Ulster 1: 1557–1957|publisher=Blackstaff Press|year=1991|isbn=0856401285|edition=2nd|location=Belfast|page=180}}</ref>
Piper worked at Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff 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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=2003-03-20|title=Shipyard painter's special touch|language=en-GB|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/2868531.stm|access-date=2021-02-27}}</ref>
Piper joined the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club<ref name=":1" /> 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.<ref name=":4">Crowther, Peter. 2013. ''Citizen Science 150 years of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club.'' National Museums Northern Ireland. {{ISBN|090076158X}}</ref>
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.<ref name=":5">{{Cite news|date=3 September 2021|title=He's an expert with a 6B|page=9|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2021}}</ref> His main income was as a portrait painter and he included among his subjects several Lord Mayors of London and Belfast.<ref name=":2" />
== Artistic career == Piper began a long association with the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1942 when he showed three works ''<nowiki/>'Dad''', ''Sunrise Knockah 1941'', and ''April Day,''<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Stewart|first=Ann M|title=Irish art societies and sketching clubs: index of exhibitors, 1870–1980, M-Z|publisher=Four Courts Press|year=1997|volume=2|location=Dublin|pages=592}}</ref> and exhibited a work each in 1944 and 1946, before an offering of two child portraits and a glass case called ''The White Goddess'' in 1948.<ref name=":7" /> 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.<ref name=":7" /> Piper contributed work to the short-lived Ulster literary magazine ''Rann,'' founded by Roy McFadden and Barbara Edwards (née Hunter) in 1948.<ref>Brown, J. (1999). Roy McFadden Interviewed. ''The Irish Review,'' (24), p. 116. {{doi|10.2307/29735944}}</ref>
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).<ref name=":2" /> 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.<ref name=":5" /> The ''Belfast Telegraph'''s book reviewer writes,<blockquote>"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."<ref>{{Cite news|last=White|first=W Brownlow|date=3 September 1964|title=Richard Hayward's Munster journey|page=8|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2021}}</ref></blockquote>Piper also held an exhibition with Richard Hayward at the Glenmachan Tower Hotel in Belfast earlier that year.<ref>{{Cite news|date=13 May 1964|title=Hotel stages paintings show|page=6|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2021}}</ref> Speaking of his choice of illustrator for ''Ulster and the City of Belfast'', author Richard Hayward said,<blockquote>"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."</blockquote>The foreword to the book was written by Maurice Walsh, author of the ''Quiet Man.''<ref>{{Cite news|last=McIlwaine|first=Eddie|date=19 July 1979|title=A Piper's-eye view|page=3|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite news|date=8 June 1950|title=Belfast artist's scholarship: Paris or Vienna study|page=5|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 April 2021}}</ref>
Although Piper rarely exhibited he presented work at International Faculty of Arts in London in 1953.<ref name=":1" /> 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 in 1958.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Chichester|date=8 April 1958|title=In three displays|page=4|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref>
In 1953 Piper presented his first solo exhibition at the CEMA Gallery in Belfast.<ref name=":2" /> The show was primarily portraits of local luminaries such as the producer and actor Harold Goldblatt, the playwright Patrick Riddell, and Lord Mayor James Norritt.<ref>{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=5 May 1953|title=Exhibitions of paintings by Raymond Piper|page=8|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=27 January 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>Hewitt, (1991), pp. 143–144</ref>
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,<ref>{{Cite news|date=31 March 1956|title=Sermon is based on Ulsterman's mural|page=1|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref> where he was to return in 1977 to conduct repairs on the damaged painting.<ref>{{Cite news|date=18 October 1977|title=Touching up Mission mural – 20 years on|page=10|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref> In May 1956 Piper completed a mural commission for the mammal house at Belfast Zoo.<ref>{{Cite news|date=23 May 1956|title=Raymond Piper at work|page=5|work=Belfast Newsletter|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=27 February 2021}}</ref> He exhibited at the CEMA gallery in 1957 alongside several of his Ulster contemporaries, all former recipients of CEMA travel bursaries.<ref name=":3" /> Piper also contributed a coloured print for the cover of Hayward's ''Border Foray'' in 1957.<ref>Hewitt, (1991), p. 143</ref>
Piper was commissioned to paint the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Lord Brookeborough on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1958.<ref>{{Cite news|date=29 May 1958|title=Prime Minister poses for his birthday portrait|page=1|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=27 February 2021}}</ref>
Piper presented a one-man show at the Royal Watercolour Society Galleries, London in 1961.<ref name=":1" /> The show comprised 64 works and was opened by one of the subjects, the Lord Mayor of London Bernard Whaley-Cohen.<ref>{{Cite news|date=14 June 1961|title=Piper show is London occasion|page=3|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref> In 1962 Piper hosted a solo exhibition in the Whitla Hall at Queen's University, Belfast.<ref name=":3" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Bowyer|first=A W|date=8 September 1962|title=Coffee and Raymond Piper|page=5|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=6 March 2021}}</ref> Piper made several contributions including a double portrait ''Audrey and Barbara'' and the nurseryman ''Sam McGredy'' to the Ulster Artists exhibition at the Magee Gallery also in 1962. His contemporaries on this occasion were T P Flanagan, Dan O'Neill, Kenneth Webb, Rowland Hill, Maurice Wilks and Frank McKelvey.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Friers|first=Rowel|date=11 August 1962|title=Selection from Ulster Artists' exhibition|page=5|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=6 March 2021}}</ref>
British Railways commissioned Piper to produce a poster in 1962<ref>{{Cite news|date=21 September 1962|title=Artist loses colour record|page=8|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 April 2021}}</ref> which promoted the Norfolk Broads.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Norfolk Broads|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artists/piper-raymond-19232007|access-date=6 April 2021|website=Artuk.org}}</ref>
In 1964 Piper was also elected Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, at the same time as Romeo Toogood, George C Morrison, David Crone, and future President Richard J Croft.<ref>{{Cite news|date=23 September 1964|title=Artists receive certificates|page=14|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=27 February 2021}}</ref> He showed a portrait of the academy's president and Belfast's artistic elderstatesman ''William Conor'', and ''Oriental Girls'' at the Annual show that year.<ref name=":7" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Bowyer|first=A W|date=1 August 1964|title=The flair of Liam Andrews|page=3|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=6 March 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|last=McKenzie|first=Graham|date=1 August 1964|title=Rolling Stones' Belfast show is a 'real knock-out'|page=3|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=6 March 2021}}</ref>
The Botanic Inn on Belfast's Malone Road was the venue for a joint show with Jack W Gray in 1964.<ref>{{Cite news|date=23 September 1964|title=Paintings on show at Inn|page=3|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2021}}</ref> Piper also showed paintings of Short's aircraft at Farnborough Airshow in the same year.<ref name=":5" />
A year later he held his first show in Dublin at the Brown Thomas Little Theatre Gallery.<ref name=":3" /> The Brown Thomas 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''.<ref>{{Cite news|date=23 February 1965|title=Belfast artist holds show in Dublin|page=8|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2021}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nelson|first=Charles E|url=http://archive.org/details/burrencompaniont00nels|title=The Burren|publisher=Samton|year=1997|isbn=978-1-898706-10-6|edition=2nd|location=Dublin|pages=175}}</ref> Piper contributed 120 line and coloured illustrations to Stephen Usherwood's 1968 anthology of Shakespeare's plays ''Shakespeare Play by Play''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/sim_best-sellers_1968-02-15_27_22|title=Best Sellers 15-02-1968: Vol 27 Iss 22|date=15 February 1968|publisher=University of Scranton|language=English}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Chicester|first=|date=20 September 1972|title=Portrait of an orchid|page=8|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.org|access-date=5 March 2021}}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
Olympic gold medal-winning pentathlete Mary Peters was the subject for a Piper portrait unveiled at the Ulster Arts Club in 1973.<ref>{{Cite news|date=22 March 1973|title=The Governor Lord Grey|page=23|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaper.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref>
Piper's orchid studies showed at the natural history section of the British Museum in 1974, and in the same year he was also awarded the John Lindley 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.<ref name=":8" /> The Ulster Museum also held an exhibition of Piper's botanical works in 1975<ref name=":3" /> as did the Royal Dublin Society in the following year.<ref name=":3" /> For his botanical works Piper was awarded a Fellowship of the Linnaean Society.<ref name=":3" /> In 1975 he was further honoured by his election as an Associate to the Royal Ulster Academy.<ref>{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=6 December 1975|title=Mercy Hunter elected|page=5|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://search.findmypast.ie/bna/viewarticle?id=bl%2f0002318%2f19751206%2f105&stringtohighlight=royal%20ulster%20academy|access-date=22 January 2021}}</ref>
Piper's sketches of ballet stars including Margot Fonteyn, Rudolph Nureyev and Marie Rambert went on show at the ''Greater London Picture Exhibition'' in 1977 to mark the Silver Jubilee of reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth II. 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 to Ulster. Piper was later to be given access to sketch Nureyev in Covent Garden in 1965.<ref>{{Cite news|date=24 March 1977|title=The drawing power of Piper: working wonders in the wings|page=13|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref>
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, Joe McWilliams, Mercy Hunter, Tom Carr and many others.<ref>{{Cite news|date=14 September 1976|title=Mrs Rees view of Ulster|page=3|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=20 March 2021}}</ref>
Piper illustrated Arthur Stringer's 1977 book ''The Experienced Huntsman.''<ref>{{Cite book|last=MacNeice|first=Louis|title=Selected prose of Louis MacNeice: 1907–1963|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|isbn=0-19-818525-1|editor-last=Heuser|editor-first=Alan|location=Oxford|pages=174|oclc=20633183}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite news|date=27 September 1979|title=Five flee bedroom blaze at flat|page=1|work=Belfast Telegraph|url=https://britishnewespaperarchive.org|access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref>
In 1987 the Blackstaff Press 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.<ref name=":8" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Fallon|first=Brian|date=6 May 1987|title=Faces in the crowd|page=8|work=Irish Times|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/1987/0506/Pg018.html|access-date=8 April 2021}}</ref>
In 1991 Piper was elected as an Honorary Academician of the Royal Hibernian Academy.<ref name=":9" /> In 1996 the Ulster Museum hosted an exhibition of ''Treasures from the Royal Horticultural Society'' which included Piper's orchids.<ref>{{Cite news|date=30 September 1996|title=Events|page=23|work=Evening Herald|url=https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk|access-date=6 March 2021}}</ref> In 2002 Piper was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts.<ref name=":9" />
His interests included music, ballet and reading.<ref name=":8" /> Piper is a past recipient of the RUA Gold Medal and the James Kennedy Memorial Award for Portraiture at the RHA.<ref name=":0" />
== Death and legacy == Raymond Piper died on 13 July 2007. He was survived by two sisters, a nephew and one niece.<ref name=":8">{{Cite web|last=Clements|first=Paul|date=2007-09-27|title=Obituary: Raymond Piper|url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/sep/27/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries|access-date=2021-02-28|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> Friend and poet Michael Longley 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.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Longley|first=Michael|date=2007|title=The Orchid Man|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25469766|journal=Irish Pages|volume=4|issue=2|pages=165–167|jstor=25469766|issn=1477-6162}}</ref>
His work can be found in the collections of Queen's University, Belfast, Royal Ulster Academy of Arts Diploma Collection,<ref name=":2" /> Belfast City Hall, the Ulster Museum, The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland,<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Finlay|first=Sarah|title=The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland Volume 1 1979–1989|publisher=Limerick University Press|year=1989|isbn=0-9503427-7-7|location=Limerick, Ireland|pages=224}}</ref> and the National Railway Museum, York.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Piper, Raymond, 1923–2007 {{!}} Art UK|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artists/piper-raymond-19232007|access-date=6 April 2021|website=artuk.org|language=en}}</ref>
==References== <references/>
==External links== *[http://artscouncil-ni.org/news/raymond-piper-1923-2007-one-of-northern-irelands-best-loved-artists-dies Raymond Piper Obituary] at www.artscouncil-ni.org *{{cite news |author= |title=Shipyard painter's special touch |date=2003-03-20 |work=BBC News |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/2868531.stm |access-date=2008-08-01 }} *[https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/actor:piper-raymond-19232007/page/2 Examples of Ray Piper's work in public collections] via [https://artuk.org Artuk.org] *[https://www.rosss.com/artist/raymond-piper-rua/results/354/ Examples of Raymond Piper's work in private collections] via [https://Rosss.com Rosss.com] *http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/2116 *https://digitalfilmarchive.net/media/spectrum-raymond-piper-and-women-in-1951
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Piper, Raymond}} Category:Botanists from Northern Ireland Category:1923 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Painters from Northern Ireland Category:Educators from Northern Ireland Category:Irish male painters Category:Members of the Royal Ulster Academy Category:Members of the Royal Hibernian Academy Category:Artists from Belfast