Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 4 DECEMBER 2024

62 25 DANIEL O’NEILL (1920-1974) Doves and a Girl Oil on board, 51 x 40.5cm (20 x 15¾’’) Signed Exhibited: Dublin, Victor Waddington Galleries, Daniel O’Neill, 1949, (September), no. 1. Dundalk, Co.Louth, The Dundalk Art Galleries, Opening Exhibition of Works by Irish Artists, (May) 1953, no. 32 Dublin, The Oriel Gallery, 100 Years of Irish Art, 1993. Dublin, Farmleigh Gallery, Daniel O’Neill: Romanticism and Friend- ships, (March-June) 2022, Belfast, Cultúrlann Gallery, Daniel O’Neill : Coming Home, (June – Aug) 2022, no.2 Literature: Oliver Nulty, 100 Years of Irish Art: Oriel Gallery SilverJubi- lee, 1968-1993, p.96. Karen Reihill, Daniel O’Neill: Romanticism & Friendships, Frederick Gal- lery Bookshop, 2020, illustrated front cover, and illustrated p.35. € 40,000 - 60,000 To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Neill in 2020, an ex- hibition and monograph dedicated to him, Daniel O’Neill: Romanticism and Friendships was planned to take place in OPW’s Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin. In 2015 this writer was approached by Daniel O’Neill’s daughter, Patricia Forster (1943- 2017) who asked if I would undertake to research her father as no one had yet published a monograph on him. Early on in my research, I chose this painting, Doves and a Girl for the front cover of the book as it represented the romantic qual- ities of his paintings, his technical ability as a painter and showed his muse, and wife Eileen, who after their first meeting featured in many of his works until his untimely death in 1974. Born into a working class Catholic family, Daniel O’Neill’s painting career coin- cided with the Second World War and as a result, there was little hope of him being able to travel to see the European Masters. The cultural atmosphere in Northern Ireland offered little encour- agement to the aspiring young painter or his friends, George Campbell and Gerard Dillon. With barely a handful of outlets to exhibit their paintings, they turned to the Belfast Reference Library to learn about art and usedwhatever materials they could source locally to achieve their aim of being full time painters. They shared information and materials which consisted of tins of housepaint, scraps of cardboard, off-cuts of plywood, and hardback covers from large books to paint subjects. But after the Belfast Blitz there was little appetite to buy art in Northern Ireland. In 1945 O’Neill’s professional painting career began when he was taken up by Dublin dealer, Victor Waddington who paid him a regular stipend so he could give up his job as an electrician and