Artists
George Campbell
George Campbell, one of Ireland's most celebrated painters of landscapes and still life, was born in Arklow, Co. Wicklow, the son of the artist Gretta Bowen. Virtually self-taught, he first began to paint in the early forties in response to the air raids on Belfast. In 1944 he held a joint exhibition at the Mol Gallery, Belfast, along with his brother,Arthur, who was also a painter. That same year he exhibited with Belfast artist Gerard Dillon at John Lamb’s Gallery in Portadown. During the 1940’s he painted with Dillon in Connemara.
In 1946 he exhibited in Dublin at the Victor Waddington Galleries, the first of several shows at that venue. The following year he first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy and was a regular contributor for the next thirty years, showing almost one hundred works. In 1951 he visited Spain for the first time and returned there on painting trips nearly every successive year. As well as painting he mastered the guitar and was accepted in Spain as a player of flamenco. A fluent Spanish speaker he was made a Knight Commander of Spain by the Spanish government. In 1954 he moved to London.
In 1949, 1952 and 1960 the Northern Ireland Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) arranged one-man exhibitions in Belfast. CEMA’s successor, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland hosted shows in 1966 and 1972. He also exhibited at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, the Ritchie Hendricks Gallery, Dublin, and the Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast and Dublin. He became an associate of the RHA in 1954 and a full member in 1964.
In 1971 and 1972 he was the subject of BBC programmes, and, in 1973 of an RTE film, Things Within Things. In the 1970’s he returned to Belfast to paint a series on the bombed-out city. ‘The great pleasure in painting was doing the thing, not finishing it’ he once remarked.
He died in May 1979 and was buried at Laragh, Glendalough, Co. Wicklow.
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