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

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Towards the end of 1951, George and Madge persuaded Gerard Dillon to tour Spain with
them. A year later, Campbell recalled his trip: ‘Malaga sticks in my mind…because…I
remember the bars up alley ways, where the ecstatic gypsies held flamencos, jam sessions
and drank themselves into nerves for days.’98 Inspired by the visit, Campbell chose Malaga as
his second home and visited annually in the winter until the end of the 1970s. For practical
and economic reasons he routinely transferred his sketches from Spain to oils in his studio
in Ireland. Evocative cool-grey West-of-Ireland landscapes and warmer toned subjects from
Andalucía characterized his exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s. Pedregalejo, a small fishing
village not far from Malaga, became Campbell’s favoured location.
98George Campbell, ‘This is Spain: A Painter’s Country’, The Irish Press, 25 January 1952.
fig.97: Gerard Dillon & George Campbell,
Spain, 1951
fig.98: Madge Campbell and Gerard Dillon,
Granada, Spain, 1951
fig.99: Spanish dancers, ‘El Pimpi’ nightclub,
1957
fig.100: Fishermen, Pedregalejó, 1954.