I
rish
& I
nternational
A
rt
A
uction
M
onday
25
th
A
pril
2016
at
6.00
pm
51
58
George Campbell RHA (1917-1979) Play of Shapes Isigned lower right
oil on board
51 x 41cm (20 x 16in)
Provenance:
The Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin (label verso)
Private Collection
€4,000-6,000 (£3,125-4,687)
George Campbell was born in County Wicklow in 1917, the son of Gretta Bowen. He went to school in Dublin but following the
death of his father in 1925 the family moved to Belfast. Campbell was working in an aircraft factory at the time of the Belfast Blitz,
and began to paint, taking the bomb-damage as his subject. He was one of the founders of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in
1943. With his brother Arthur, he published Now in Ulster (1944), an anthology of short stories, essays and poetry by young Belfast
writers.
After the war Campbell became increasingly interested in Spain. In 1946 he came to know Spaniards who had settled in Dublin, and
when in London painted visiting Spanish dancers in their traditional costume. He finally visited Spain in the early 1950s, encouraged
by his friendship with Gerald Dillon and “an interest in bohemian characters”. He lived there for much of the next twenty-five years.
Campbell made stained glass windows for Galway Cathedral. He also played flamenco guitar. A member of the Royal Hibernian
Academy, he won the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal in 1966 and the Oireachtas Prize for Landscape in 1969. The Spanish government
made him a Knight Commander of Spain in 1978.