154 / 170
154
Missing his friends, he painted compositions depicting happy girls playing on Spanish streets
alongside disturbing dehumanized heads. This is a contradiction, but as Campbell didn’t
exhibit the ‘Non-Head Series’, he didn’t need to explain their meaning. Perhaps in the last
years of his life it was easier to become one of his clowns, and wear a mask in public so he
could escape and ‘be someone else for a while.’
225
Unfortunately, Madge Campbell was too frail to attend the official ceremony in George
Campbell’s honour of the roundabout, ‘Glorieta Jorge Campbell’ on the road to Pedregalejó,
226
March 2006. She did, however, want to thank all those involved at the inauguration,
concluding, “his [George Campbell] body may be buried in Ireland but I know his heart
remains in Malaga and Andalucía”.
227
Her final resting place was with George in Laragh,
Co. Wicklow.
It is hoped this exhibition will contribute to the re-evaluation of George Campbell and his
friends, the Belfast Boys.
Karen Reihill
June, 2015
225
Campbell stated he painted his friends as clowns so they could escape and be someone else for a while.
BBC Triptych, 1979.
226
The ceremony on 14 March 2006 was part of Malaga’s promotion for the City of European Culture in
2016. A member of the Irish Cultural Association, Malaga, Carlos Perez Torres wrote an article, ‘Un tal Jorge
Campbell’ for the catalogue
Irlanda en Málaga
, March 2006. Torres also wrote an essay on Campbell, ‘George
Campbell,
O La síntesis en La pintura del espíritu celta y vocacíon Mediterránea
’, Isla De Arriarán, June 2001,
and the essay ‘George Campbell (1917–1971)' for the retrospective catalogue,
Homenaje a George Campbell
,
Una Mirada Retrospectiva, 2002.
227
Wesley Boyd in
Looking for George
, Cedecom, 2006.
fig.248: Plaque marking the cermony
naming ‘Glorieta Jorge Campbell’ (2006)
fig.249: Friends attending the inauguration of
‘Glorieta Jorge Campbell ’March, 2006