Philip Connard was born at Southport in Lancashire on 24 March 1875. He was the son of David Connard and was given a minimum of state schooling, before joining the building trade as a house-painter. He attended evening classes in art, won a scholarship to the National Art Training School, South Kensington in 1896 and in 1898, a British Institution Prize which took him to study at the Académie Julian in Paris. Having run out of funds, he returned to London, worked as an illustrator and obtained a teachhing post at the Lambeth School of Art. That position provided him with security of means and he then began to submit work to open exhibitions. He went on to become a prolific painter of landscapes, portraits, murals and decorative interiors. His work was notable for its concentration on the fleeting effects of light, its lively Impressionistic handling of paint, and his point-blank refusal to take any account of contemporary modernist developments in painting. Connard was a great friend of the Australian artist George Bell (1878-1966), both having attended the Académie Julian. They shared ideas about how to paint, both of them enjoying the effects of loose brushwork and outdoor light. Connard’s earliest successes were with the New English Art Club, where he commenced exhibiting in 1906. Through the friendship and encouragement of the heavyweight experts Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer, he was elected to membership of the NEAC in 1909. He was also a Foundation Member of the National Portrait Society in 1911. He had one-man exhibitions at the Leicester Galleries in 1912 and later at Barbizon House. During the Great War, he served as an officer in the Royal Artillery, saw action in the Battle of the Somme and was invalided out, subsequently becoming an official war artist with the Royal Navy (1916-18). He was elected ARA in 1918 and it was only at that point in his career, that he began to show his work at the RA summer exhibitions. He was elected RA in 1925 and his Diploma Work was Apollo and Daphne (c.1925). Connard painted the murals for the Queen’s Doll’s House Room at Windsor Castle in 1924 and designed posters for the London Underground Group in the period 1924-30. He is also known to have tried his hand at book illustration, having provided those for Stephen Phillips’ book Marpesa in 1928. Connard worked in oils, but showed great interest in the watercolour medium from the mid-point of his career. From 1932, he lived at Richmond in Surrey. That area’s landscape and river quickly became the subject of his subsequent works in watercolour. He was elected to membership of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1934. In 1935 he travelled up to Scotland to carry out mural decorations for the liner RMS QUEEN MARY (now permanently berthed at Long Beach, California). Connard was twice married. His first wife, Mary, died in 1927. He remarried in 1933 to Georgina Yorke, who featured in many of his later paintings. Thomas MacGreevy, reviewing a Connard exhibition at Barbizon House for The Studio in 1938 would write: ‘A small but fairly representative exhibition of works by the distinguished academician. Mr Connard has an unfailing eye for the decorative element in any subject he tackles, and so is almost invariably successful in flower pieces and interiors. In portraiture he does not go very deeply into the delineation of character and in such a picture as Sunbathing in Tyrol one was rather surprised at his indifference to the possibilities of the mountains in the background as providing an element of volume in the composition. But in such pictures as The River at Kingston and Morning Mist there was unmistakable poetry of vision and the flamingoes in Mantelpiece Decoration were finely drawn and delicately colourful.’ During the Second World War, Connard is known to have been involved with the RA’s camouflage initiatives. In the period 1945-49, he served as Keeper of the Royal Academy, being much praised for setting matters aright, after the disruption of the war years. Connard took an active role in the affairs of the RA and in November 1949 is recorded as having opposed in General Assembly the resolution that two ARAs be appointed each year to the Council from those who had been members for at least three years. In appreciation of his labours, Connard was appointed Commander of the Victorian Order upon retirement in 1950. However, his resignation from the RA could be considered supportive of the outgoing president, the combative Sir Alfred Munnings, who went out in a blaze of glory. Connard died at Twickenham Hospital, Middlesex on 8 December 1958. An exhibition of his work was held at Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham in 1973. A considerable body of his work may be found in the collection of the Tate Gallery in London. His personal papers may be found in the archive of the RA.