Conor Walton is a leading Irish artist and a painter of international renown.

He has had twenty three solo exhibitions in Europe and America and participated in museum exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery (London), MEAM (Barcelona), The National Gallery of Ireland, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Museo Páblo Serrano (Zaragoza), Troina Museum of Contemporary Art (Sicily), Palazzo Litta (Milan), Palazzo Cini (Venice), the American University Museum (Washington DC), WMOCA (Wisconsin), Castello di San Leo (Italy) PO.RO.S Museum (Portugal), Pasinger Fabrik (Munich) and Winchester Museum (UK).

Walton has won numerous awards for his work including the Gino De Agrò International Award (2022), the Ismail Lulani International Award (2019), ModPortrait 2017, Arc Salon 2014/15 (Still Life), Portrait Ireland 2005, ‘Lorenzo il Magnifico’ International Award (1999), Don Niccolo D'Ardia Caracciolo RHA Medal (1997), Keating McLoughlin Medal (1997), Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Scholarship (1994) Taylor Prize (1993). He was shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award in 2005 and the Golden Fleece Award in 2011.

He was born in Ireland in 1970 and trained at NCAD in Dublin and under Charles Cecil in Florence, Italy. He holds a Masters Degree in Art History and Theory (awarded with Distinction) from the University of Essex. He has lectured at the National Gallery of Ireland, University College Dublin, the Royal Hibernian Academy, Laguna College of Art and Design, the New Museum, Los Gatos, and been Artist in Residence at California Lutheran University. He has attended The Representational Art Conference (TRAC) both as demonstration artist and guest speaker. Since its foundation in 2017 the ‘Conor Walton Summer School’ and its scholarship programme have drawn students from four continents.

His works have appeared on postage stamps and book covers in Ireland and abroad.

He lives and works in Wicklow, Ireland.

"I see myself as a figurative painter in the European tradition, attempting to maintain my craft at the highest level, using paint to explore issues of truth, meaning and value. All my paintings are attempted answers to the three questions in the title of Gauguin’s famous painting: ‘Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?’"
- Conor Walton

"Conor Walton is making important paintings. These are my kind of masterpieces."

“These paintings are exquisite, not simply for their masterful technique but for their intriguing and provocative content as well. This is the art that is destined to shift the paradigm for artistic canon in the 21st century. It takes more than virtuous craftsmanship, it takes well informed innovative ideas to make great artworks. Conor is just the type of innovative thinker we need to take fine art where it must to go for the future. His artwork is insightful, philosophically astute, beautifully rendered and culturally relevant in the contemporary era. Conor's paintings are politically conscious without falling into the pitfalls of propaganda or sanctimony. Finally, a talented representational painter who actually comprehends 20th century art history, knows how to deploy it without glib appropriations and who can create work that is neither cliché nor derivative. Salute to Conor Walton, a painter for the ages!”
- Joseph Bravo (art-historian, critic, curator, Director of the Centro de Artes, Texas A&M University, San Antonio, USA).

"Peremptory satire ages fast on the hurried stage of global politics, but because Walton’s burlesques are clad in the finery of brilliant execution, they are destined for long lives as fine examples of the cutting sharpness of the best of 21st century representational art."
- Michael Pearce (artist, writer, critic, curator, Professor of Figurative Drawing and Painting at California Lutheran University)

"Because of his ability to generate dramas of ideas and to paint them masterfully, Walton’s paintings are hard to look away from. Opposing easy optimism, they offer a vision grounded in realism and cathartic tragedy."
- John Seed (writer, curator, Professor of Art and Art History at Mount San Jacinto College, California)

"Concentration of thought, paralleled by dedication to skill in composition and the application of paint, was central to the development of Conor Walton's output during these years ... and led to his outstanding, and outstandingly successful, solo exhibition in March 1999 in Dublin. I spoke about him on that occasion, warmly commending the intensity of his vision, the intellectual authority of his conception, and the richness of his output. He is loaded with promise, burdened with an excess of what, in the seventeenth century, was a term of admiration - conceit."
- Bruce Arnold (writer, critic and art-historian)

"Walton, who studied in Florence and enjoys an international reputation, is steeped in the classical tradition, has perfected the grand style but he is also a thoroughly modern artist; the work is informed by a contemporary intellectual sensibility."
- Niall MacMonagle (critic, Sunday Independent)

"Dublin-born Conor Walton is a prodigious talent ... His extraordinary draughtsmanship and mastery of chiaroscuro, allied to his affinity for colour and composition undoubtedly makes him one of Europe's top contemporary artists."
- New Museum Los Gatos, USA

"It would be a mistake simply to view Conor Walton as an artist with exceptional skills who makes fine pictures. Conor is a person of strong opinions, someone with a lot to say, and he uses his art practice to capture, critique and present contemporary social issues to the public. Nevertheless, even if his pictures obviously refer to contemporary events, he remains determined that they are not reducible to mere propaganda. He wants his work not only to be accessible to a wide audience, but also to challenge viewers as to whether their own opinions are being endorsed or mocked. He describes this ambiguity as 'dancing along cultural faultlines'. As it happens, I believe that the kind of realist paintings that Conor paints are perfect vehicles for this sort of ambiguity."
- Robert Ballagh, leading Irish artist and designer, guest speaker at the opening of Conor Walton: 'Asymmetrical Warfare', Luan Gallery, August 17th 2019.

"In effect, his painting is a profound investigation into past human events and contemporary developments. The artist presents an oeuvre of great formal balance that draws expressive force from the European figurative tradition, compositional harmony, technical rigor. An attentive observer of the social system, he inserts himself with courage and feeling into the dynamics of contemporary society, searching for answers to doubts and problems."
- Paolo Giansiracusa (art historian and curator)

"Mr 'Painter' is, all at once, outstanding in his studio, far reaching in his micro-ness, future proofing in his classical adherence, vivid in his undertone-ing-ness. Indeed, as Churchill once misquoted; 'A griddle wrapped in mastery inside of a magma!' In short; his work is tomorrow's fish wrapped in yesterday's newspaper."
- Milo O'Gorman, Wordwaffler's Chronicle Digest.

Awards

De Agró International Award, Troina Museum of Contemorary Art, Italy (2022)

Ismail Lulani International Award, ViZart Self-Portrait Biennial 2019,
National Historical Museum, Tirana

First Prize, ModPortrait 2017, Zaragoza and MEAM Barcelona

Third Prize, Still Life Category, International ARC Salon (2014-2015)

Finalist and sitter's choice, Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2014, Dublin heat.

Shortlisted, Golden Fleece Award, Dublin (2011)

Portrait Ireland 2005 Major Award,
Newtownbarry House Gallery (2005)

Shortlisted, BP Portrait Award,
National Portrait Gallery, London (2005)

Third Prize `Lorenzo Il Magnifico' for Painting,
Florence Biennale (1999)

Don Niccolo D'Ardia Caracciolo RHA Medal (1997)

Keating McLoughlin Medal awarded by the ESB (1997)

Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Montreal, Canada, Scholarship (1994)

Royal Dublin Society Taylor Art Bequest,
First Prize (1993)


Conor Walton with his son Daniel outside the Museo Páblo Serrano, Zaragoza, in 2018

Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

Select Bibliography