This painter was born George Howard Fox at Brewood, Cannock, Staffordshire, on 25th January 1902 as third child and second son of George Fox and his wife Agnes Maud Jones (b.c.1874). They had married, probably at Brewood, in 1898. George senior was Irish, having been born on 9th May 1870 at Coollagagh, Foxford, Co. Mayo, as one of the children of a Roman Catholic farmer called Meredith Fox (c.1817–1897) and his wife Bridget Durkan or Durcan, who married at Killasser, about five miles away, on 2nd February 1857. At Meredith’s death aged 80 he left estate of just under £60 and evidence of being a serially litigious character, so it was not a wealthy background. In the 1901 census George gave his occupation as an ‘Inland Revenue Officer’, which suggests that either originally in Ireland, or after a move to England, he became a civil servant (presuming a sound basic education).
In 1911, at Ilford, Essex, he stated ‘Customs and Excise Officer’: in short, it looks as though he was a taxation official.
George and Agnes had all their children at Brewood, where the 1901 census shows them living at 1 Shop Lane: the eldest was Mary (b.1899), then Edward (b.c.October 1900), George Howard, and finally Agnes and Annie, twins born in late 1903. On 16th April 1904 the children lost their mother when, despite being warned to take care, she crossed the line in front of a stationary train at Four Ashes Station near Stafford without seeing an express coming the other way: a verdict of accidental death was returned (Birmingham Daily Gazette, 19th April 1904). According to a great-grandson of George Howard, the children were then brought up by their father ‘alongside a notorious housekeeper called Mrs. Onions’. At the 1911 census, when the family was living at 128 Thorold Road, Ilford – possibly because George senior was re-posted there – she is named as 55-year-old Elizabeth Onions, with her 28-year-old daughter Agnes also present as general servant. Elizabeth was born at Bloxwich, Staffordshire, and Agnes also at Brewood, so it appears to have been a relationship beginning about 1904 (neither were present in 1901).
Nothing further is known of Fox until he joined the Slade School of Art, apparently in 1923, except that he had by then acquired strong Irish Nationalist leanings and, about the age of 17 changed his name to ‘Seóirse MacAntisionnaigh’ (George, son of a fox): this is the ‘-isi-’ spelling by which he was registered at the Slade but does not appear in other record. Two minor letters of 1922 by him, possibly connected with bonds called ‘Dáil loans’ sold to help fund the early Irish Republican government, show that he could write Irish Gaelic and he probably also learnt to speak it early (William Martin papers, Irish National Archives). If not primarily from his father, it may have been from childhood association, whether in Ireland or England, with other Fox family members who did so.
As ‘MacAntisionnaigh’, he was a notable painting student at the Slade from 1923 to 1927. He won First Prize (Equal) in 'Head Painting' with Rex Whistler in 1924, the Slade only retaining his entry (Portrait of a Girl, LDUCS: PC5101). In the same year he also won Second Prize (Equal) with five others in 'Figure Painting', with William Dring and Whistler sharing First Prize; also in 1924, in the ‘Summer Composition’ category – then titled 'Figure Composition’ – he and five others including Whistler gained Second Prize (Equal), no First being awarded. His entry for this was The Slade Tea Party (PC5272), showing a group of students and staff, centring round the seated figure of Professor Henry Tonks, in the quadrangle in front of the north wing of the Wilkins Building, University College London. This may also be the painting shown as Strawberry Tea in the New English Art Club's 72nd annual exhibition at the Spring Gardens Gallery in 1925, where it received rather negative comment in the Tatler of 6th May. Johnson and Greutner only note him as showing two works at the NEAC and one in Manchester, 1925–1927, all from 128 Thorold Road, Ilford which The Year’s Art gives as his address until 1938.
After leaving the Slade, Macantsionnaigh was for some time assistant to Gerald Kelly (later Sir Gerald, 1879–1972, and PRA 1949–54), who had been one of his teachers there: he appears to have helped Kelly with backgrounds to portraits and they remained friends thereafter.
Sometime in the early 1930s he began a relationship with Marie Reeta Patricia Brown (née Blount, 1903–1978), known as ‘Marita’. She was the daughter of George L. W. Blount, an architect, and became one herself: the 1930 London commercial directory lists her (as Miss Blount) at 24 Devonshire Street, WC1. In October 1929, however, she had married Francis Bowen Reynolds Brown (later a top SOE agent in the Second World War, d.1973). That soon ended in divorce and on 30th November 1935 she remarried to Macantsionnaigh (using the name George Fox on this occasion) at St Helier registry office, Jersey. His profession was then stated as ‘carpenter’. Family report says he had first gone to Sark in the Channel Islands to work as one, possibly doing an apprenticeship there and probably also painting, although whether connected with the art colony on Sark is not known.
The Macantsionnaighs' son Brian was born in St Helier on 2nd May 1936 and was baptised there at the Primitive Methodist Church in Aquila Road on 7th June. Given his father’s Catholic background, the Methodist baptism lacks explanation other than perhaps Marita’s choice; they also had a daughter shortly afterwards. When the National Register was taken in September 1939 they had returned to England and were living at 87 Cowesfield Green, Whiteparish, near Salisbury and only a few miles from Marita’s family home at West Grimstead.
Macantsionnaigh then described himself as a ‘Painter (Fine Art) Carpenter’ but began teaching art and art history at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury, probably until shortly after the Second World War. From 1947 to 1949 he went to Baghdad to do the same before returning to London where he became art master at the William Morris Technical School, Gainsford Road, Walthamstow, until his retirement in 1973. According to a grandson he continued to paint but he is not known to have exhibited in a generally recorded context after 1927.
The Macantsionnaighs’ marriage seems to have ended in separation, possibly as early as 1946 and certainly by 1955 when the London electoral register, and those to 1965, show only him as one of the residents at 42 Great North Road, Highgate. Brian Macantsionnaigh married in 1958 and had five children (one son and four daughters): his family lived in London but he died in Somerset in 1973, where his sister and hers were then living. Their father moved there in the 1980s, to a retirement flat in Taunton: he died there aged 95 on 24th August 1997.
Summarised from Art UK’s Art Detective discussion ‘What more can you tell us about the artist S. (Seóirse?) MacAntisonnaigh and who can be identified in this tea party?’
George and Agnes had all their children at Brewood, where the 1901 census shows them living at 1 Shop Lane: the eldest was Mary (b.1899), then Edward (b.c.October 1900), George Howard, and finally Agnes and Annie, twins born in late 1903. On 16th April 1904 the children lost their mother when, despite being warned to take care, she crossed the line in front of a stationary train at Four Ashes Station near Stafford without seeing an express coming the other way: a verdict of accidental death was returned (Birmingham Daily Gazette, 19th April 1904). According to a great-grandson of George Howard, the children were then brought up by their father ‘alongside a notorious housekeeper called Mrs. Onions’. At the 1911 census, when the family was living at 128 Thorold Road, Ilford – possibly because George senior was re-posted there – she is named as 55-year-old Elizabeth Onions, with her 28-year-old daughter Agnes also present as general servant. Elizabeth was born at Bloxwich, Staffordshire, and Agnes also at Brewood, so it appears to have been a relationship beginning about 1904 (neither were present in 1901).
Nothing further is known of Fox until he joined the Slade School of Art, apparently in 1923, except that he had by then acquired strong Irish Nationalist leanings and, about the age of 17 changed his name to ‘Seóirse MacAntisionnaigh’ (George, son of a fox): this is the ‘-isi-’ spelling by which he was registered at the Slade but does not appear in other record. Two minor letters of 1922 by him, possibly connected with bonds called ‘Dáil loans’ sold to help fund the early Irish Republican government, show that he could write Irish Gaelic and he probably also learnt to speak it early (William Martin papers, Irish National Archives). If not primarily from his father, it may have been from childhood association, whether in Ireland or England, with other Fox family members who did so.
As ‘MacAntisionnaigh’, he was a notable painting student at the Slade from 1923 to 1927. He won First Prize (Equal) in 'Head Painting' with Rex Whistler in 1924, the Slade only retaining his entry (Portrait of a Girl, LDUCS: PC5101). In the same year he also won Second Prize (Equal) with five others in 'Figure Painting', with William Dring and Whistler sharing First Prize; also in 1924, in the ‘Summer Composition’ category – then titled 'Figure Composition’ – he and five others including Whistler gained Second Prize (Equal), no First being awarded. His entry for this was The Slade Tea Party (PC5272), showing a group of students and staff, centring round the seated figure of Professor Henry Tonks, in the quadrangle in front of the north wing of the Wilkins Building, University College London. This may also be the painting shown as Strawberry Tea in the New English Art Club's 72nd annual exhibition at the Spring Gardens Gallery in 1925, where it received rather negative comment in the Tatler of 6th May. Johnson and Greutner only note him as showing two works at the NEAC and one in Manchester, 1925–1927, all from 128 Thorold Road, Ilford which The Year’s Art gives as his address until 1938.
After leaving the Slade, Macantsionnaigh was for some time assistant to Gerald Kelly (later Sir Gerald, 1879–1972, and PRA 1949–54), who had been one of his teachers there: he appears to have helped Kelly with backgrounds to portraits and they remained friends thereafter.
Sometime in the early 1930s he began a relationship with Marie Reeta Patricia Brown (née Blount, 1903–1978), known as ‘Marita’. She was the daughter of George L. W. Blount, an architect, and became one herself: the 1930 London commercial directory lists her (as Miss Blount) at 24 Devonshire Street, WC1. In October 1929, however, she had married Francis Bowen Reynolds Brown (later a top SOE agent in the Second World War, d.1973). That soon ended in divorce and on 30th November 1935 she remarried to Macantsionnaigh (using the name George Fox on this occasion) at St Helier registry office, Jersey. His profession was then stated as ‘carpenter’. Family report says he had first gone to Sark in the Channel Islands to work as one, possibly doing an apprenticeship there and probably also painting, although whether connected with the art colony on Sark is not known.
The Macantsionnaighs' son Brian was born in St Helier on 2nd May 1936 and was baptised there at the Primitive Methodist Church in Aquila Road on 7th June. Given his father’s Catholic background, the Methodist baptism lacks explanation other than perhaps Marita’s choice; they also had a daughter shortly afterwards. When the National Register was taken in September 1939 they had returned to England and were living at 87 Cowesfield Green, Whiteparish, near Salisbury and only a few miles from Marita’s family home at West Grimstead.
Macantsionnaigh then described himself as a ‘Painter (Fine Art) Carpenter’ but began teaching art and art history at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury, probably until shortly after the Second World War. From 1947 to 1949 he went to Baghdad to do the same before returning to London where he became art master at the William Morris Technical School, Gainsford Road, Walthamstow, until his retirement in 1973. According to a grandson he continued to paint but he is not known to have exhibited in a generally recorded context after 1927.
The Macantsionnaighs’ marriage seems to have ended in separation, possibly as early as 1946 and certainly by 1955 when the London electoral register, and those to 1965, show only him as one of the residents at 42 Great North Road, Highgate. Brian Macantsionnaigh married in 1958 and had five children (one son and four daughters): his family lived in London but he died in Somerset in 1973, where his sister and hers were then living. Their father moved there in the 1980s, to a retirement flat in Taunton: he died there aged 95 on 24th August 1997.
Summarised from Art UK’s Art Detective discussion ‘What more can you tell us about the artist S. (Seóirse?) MacAntisonnaigh and who can be identified in this tea party?’
Text source: Art Detective
