Adams Summer Loan Exhibition - George Campbell And The Belfat Boys 7th July - 3rd September 2015

152 / 170

152
The boys painted images of the Blitz and Dillon and O’Neill immediately responded to the
violence in 1969. Campbell’s reaction in 1973 also didn’t sentimentalize it but not everyone
accepted his depiction of the conflict. Joseph McWilliams recently commented ‘I was living
through it on a daily basis; he [George] lived in Spain for half the year and then painted thirty
pictures of the Troubles. I had difficulty with this.’220 Living in Belfast in the 1970’s, Martin
Dillon offered another view, ‘Campbell never saw the Troubles in political terms but in
human terms. The loss of life and mayhem bothered him.’221 The paintings went undetected
however, despite being included in two RTE documentary films222 and the artist making
references to his ‘Belfast series’ in interviews in the late 1970’s. Since his death they have
been scantly referred to or in some cases not at all. None of his ‘Belfast series’ were included
in his retrospective exhibition in Drogheda, 1992 and none were chosen for inclusion for the
exhibition ‘Art of The Troubles’ in the Ulster Museum, 2014.
War and its effects had a profound impact on Campbell. Clearly agitated from the violence
in the North, he stated in one interview, ‘I just hate people murdering each other. And the
only way I can possibly make my comment, since I’m not used to words is to paint. I’ve seen
this violence before. I saw it in the 20’s and in the 30’s. I saw it in the Blitz.’223 A year before
his death, he raised the issue of the conflict again in an interview exclaiming, ‘and now I’m
right back to the bombs again, the horrible still life of the North. Referencing his ‘Non-Head
Series’ and the continuation of the violence in the North, he added, ‘I’m still reacting to the
horror…maybe they’re our equivalent of witch doctors. Maybe we all need these dreadful
totem heads so we don’t have to see ourselves.’224
220Conversation with Joseph McWilliams, 24 January, 2014
221Correspondence with Martin Dillon, 18 May, 2014.
222‘Things Within Things’, 1973 and ‘George Campbell, A Tribute’, June 1979.
223Unidentified newspaper cutting in the Artist’s scrapbook
224Ciaran Carty, op. cit.
fig.246: George and Madge Campbell fig.247: George Campbell