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

19 / 170

19
George Campbell and the Belfast Boys 2015
20 Daniel O’Neill (1920 - 1974)
Girl From The North
Oil on board, 51 x 61cm
Signed
Lewinter-Frankl Collection
Similar to Dillon, O’Neill supported his artistic career by working (as an electrician) at
night while painting during the day. During the Blitz, Dillon and O’Neill made frames
from damaged timber and experimented with hand carving using the stones left over from
bombed buildings. In an interview, O’Neill recalled Dillon making ‘futuristic and surrealist
shapes’.25 Consulting art books, O’Neill and Dillon admired Van Gogh and the early
Renaissance painters. Campbell preferred not to consult books and wanted to find out things
himself though trial and error. Despite being known for his ‘incessant chatter’,26 Campbell
never liked discussing art, though he did remark in interviews in the 1960’s and 70’s that he
admired Braque, Goya, Zurbaran and Caravaggio.
25Cecil French Salkeld, ‘Daniel O’Neill: A Critical Appreciation’, Envoy , Vol. 1. No.1 December 1949, p. 33.
26James MacIntyre, op cit., p. 93.