Raymond Piper and Creative Women

Join Spectrum as Ulster Television celebrate two rarities in Northern Irish art, orchids and an entirely female exhibition.

Raymond Piper invites Ulster Television into his studio to see his latest botanical drawings. Having declared his desire to paint all Irish orchids, in this film Raymond likens his search for new species to detective work. Then join Lynia Ryan, curator of “Creative Women” as she discusses why she felt the need for a women’s only exhibition. Find out why as a radical feminist she sees this as her modest contribution to International Women’s Year.

Raymond Piper moved from London to Belfast aged 6 and discovered Cavehill, his happy hunting ground for collecting wildflowers. He was a largely self-taught artist having worked as an apprentice in Harland and Wolff during World War Two. When he could snatch time in between jobs he would sketch Cavehill and his fellow shipyard workers however was never tempted to draw the ships they worked on. His fascination with orchids emerged from a collaboration with Richard Hayward on a series of books called 'This is Ireland'. These rushes are from Spectrum a fortnightly programme that brought Northern Irish arts matters to a local audience for half an hour from 1971-1988. This material is courtesy of the UTV archive.