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37 George Campbell RHA (1917 - 1979)
Portait of Arthur Armstrong
Watercolour 25x19cm, Signed
Arthur Armstrong first met Dillon while he was attending art classes in Belfast.
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Dillon
introduced him to Tom Davidson, George Campbell
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and Daniel O’Neill. Born in
Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, 1924, his interest in art had been fostered in childhood by his
father, who was a Sunday painter. Regarding himself as ‘an abstract painter’,
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after the War,
Armstrong painted in his attic studio in Belfast.
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From the late 1940s, his work depicts
interior and figurative scenes. He held his first solo exhibition at the Grafton Gallery, Dublin,
in 1950, but received little recognition. In the early 1950’s he experimented with cubism
with a series of indoor and outdoor café scenes. A member of the Youth Hostel Association
of Northern Ireland, he participated in the twenty-first celebration exhibition, ‘Exhibition of
Paintings by Past and Present Members’, at the CEMA gallery in June 1953.
By 1946, George Campbell’s talent for attracting publicity was apparent. He propelled his
friends
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to paint images on cardboard panels to act as a backdrop on the blank theatre walls
of the Arts Theatre Studio in Upper North Street, where Hubert Wilmot’s drama group had
moved to in 1946. It is likely Campbell’s friendship with Wilmot led to the commission.
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The theatre sat over a hundred people who viewed their works daily.
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In an interview with Deirdre Purcell on 24 January 1983, the artist stated he went to classes for two weeks.
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Armstrong met Campbell after 1946:
Amongst Friends
, p. 94.
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Armstrong in ‘Exhibition of Painting by Arthur Armstrong RHA’, Kenny Gallery, November 1979.
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9 Churchill Street, Belfast.
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Arthur Armstrong, James MacIntyre, Gladys MacCabe and Tom McCreanor.
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Wilmot had contributed to the Campbell brothers publication, ‘
Now in Ulster
’, 1944.
fig.55: Thomas McCreanor, Arthur Armstrong
and Leslie Zukor with dog ‘Prosper’, Belfast
Docks, 1940’s