Alfred Concanen

Alfred Concanen (1835 – 10 December 1886) was, for over twenty-five years, one of the leading lithographers of the Victorian era, best remembered for his illustrated sheet music covers for songs made popular by famous music hall performers of the time. These covers usually featured portraits of the performers or humorous scenes from their songs.Sacheverell Sitwell said of him, "The most painstaking of the Pre-Raphaelites must fail beside Concanen!"

His family originated from the borders of County Roscommon and County Galway, while one of his ancestors was a well-known artist in that area in the 1760s. His parents were Edward John Concanen (c. 1814–1868), a portrait painter in Ireland in the early decades of the 19th century, and Mary Ann Concanen (née Burgess) (1815–1884).

Alfred Concanen was born in the High Street in Nottingham. Described as "slight of build with a fair full moustache, something of a dandy, good natured, generous, a play copy of the lions comiques whom he immortalised in his lithographs", for a period he was a staff illustrator for the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News where he sometimes used photographs (which could not be reproduced in the newspapers or magazines of the time) as a basis for his illustrations. At other times he might be seen in a theatre sketching a scene from a new comic opera or in a music hall drawing a performer such as Jenny Hill or Nellie Farren for a sheet music cover.

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