On the centenary of the artist’s birth, Brian Fallon revisits some personal recollections of George Campbell’s Spanish period
George Campbell was a volatile, multi-talented man, a driven worker, and a central figure in Irish art during the 1950s and 1960s, until the dominance of abstraction somewhat dimmed his visibility. I was friendly, even intimate with him for a time but we virtually lost all contact well before his death in 1979, when he was leading a quiet life in Co Wicklow with his devoted wife Madge (who outlived him by many years). By then he was inching back into popularity (though he always had a following ); in particular, his work was selling well at auction. I read recently that one of his many West of Ireland paintings, entitled Evening in Connemara, had sold at Sotheby’s in 2007 for £50,000, no less. Sales in general are a poor index to quality, yet in this case it was a just tribute to a considerable talent.
Eddie Rafferty’s love affair with Africa is manifest at his first major survey exhibition on view this summer at the FE McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, writes Riann Coulter.
