136 / 170
136
After his solo exhibition at the Dawson Gallery, May 1971, the next few years were laden with
tragedy for O’Neill. In June 1971, his friend Gerard Dillon died from a stroke at Adelaide
Hospital. Six months later, O’Neill learnt that a bomb had destroyed McClelland’s gallery.
His problems were exasperated by the break up of his relationship with Margaret Allen and
the loss of his studio.
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Succumbing to alcohol, he died March 1974.
Martin Dillon
181
recalled Campbell’s reaction to his friend’s death: ‘Gerard’s death triggered
a great sense of emotional loss. I am not sure if Madge [Campbell] ever fully understood
that.’
182
Campbell prepared for his first retrospective organized by the Arts Council, 1972,
against a backdrop of the escalating violence on the streets of Belfast.
183
Inspired by conversations with his friends Tom McGurk
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and Martin Dillon, who drove
Campbell around Belfast showing him areas affected by the Troubles, Campbell embarked on
a series of paintings, ‘The Belfast Series’, representing Belfast during the conflict. He showed
‘The Belfast Series’ at Tom Caldwell’s gallery in June 1973. The catalogue of paintings,
numbered 1–40, was on a separate sheet of paper that listed no titles
185
or measurements
of the paintings. Kenneth Jamison, who wrote the foreword in the catalogue couldn’t recall
why the paintings were not given titles or sizes.
186
He did however, remember what he wrote,
‘Anyone visiting this exhibition will be in no doubt about the artist’s personal despair at having
to witness again such a burden of distress this time the more bitter for being self inflicted…
What are the apparently remote observers to make of his incomprehensible desolation? What
indeed? ’ After the exhibition opened, the paintings were withdrawn from the gallery to be
filmed for an RTE abstract film production, ‘Things within Things’, which was filmed by
award-wining cameraman, Gunter Wulff.
180
In spring 1972, O’Neill’s flat and studio caught fire. Interview with McClelland, 20 October 2012.
181
A writer/reporter and friend of Campbell, Martin Dillon is Gerard Dillon’s grandnephew.
182
Correspondence with Martin Dillon, 21 May 2014.
183
Bloody Sunday, January 1972, and the Abercorn bombing, March 1972.
184
A poet/reporter, Tom McGurk was a frequent visitor to Campbell’s home in the 1970s.
185
In Tom Caldwell’s material on Campbell, six titles for the Belfast series are listed in a handwritten note by
the artist, ‘The Wall’ 21x13in, ‘Car No. 2’,21x25in, ‘Shop’18x21in , ‘Window’16x20in , ‘Victim’ 16x18 , ‘No.
Title’ 20x25in.
186
Conversation with Kenneth Jamison, 18 May, 2015
fig.222: George Campbell in front of
Gerard Dillon’s painting,
‘The Dreamer’
fig.223: George Campbell and Jim Jones with
‘Burnt out Buses’ from his ‘Belfast Series’ for RTE’s
documentary ‘Things Within Things’, 1973