‘George Campbell & The Belfast Boys’ by Karen Reihill is an extensively illustrated catalogue, published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name which she curated at Adam’s Dublin and the Ava Gallery Clandeboye, Co. Down, in Summer 2015. Irish auction houses do not often produce books, and although this is billed as a catalogue, it is actually a book, one of a small number that Reihill has produced for Adam’s.
The Belfast Boys was the nickname given to the artists George Campbell, Arthur Armstrong, Gerard Dillon, and Daniel O’Neill. All of these are Northerners, with the exception of Campbell who was born in Wicklow – his father was a Northerner – but brought up in Belfast. Campbell’s mother was the ‘naif’ artist Gretta Bowen.
All of them spent very long periods outside of the North: Campbell and Armstrong in Spain, Dillon and Armstrong in Dublin and London, and O’Neill in London. They were a major influence, not only on Northern Irish art but on Irish art in general.
From a critical point of view, art critics and historians from the Republic tend to underate them: Brian Fallon for instance in his Irish Art 1830-1990 (Appletree Press, Belfast, 1994) ignores Armstrong altogether and gives the other three two paragraphs between them. A much fairer assessment can be found in S.B. Kennedy’s pioneering Irish Art & Modernism (Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, 1991).
(l-r) front cover, back cover and insert page of Reihill's book
As such it is a pleasure to find a Southern writer championing all four of them. The book is organized chronologically, decade by decade from the forties to the seventies. It is packed with illustrations, both in colour and in black and white. A major feature is that the author has unearthed large numbers of photographs of the artists (socializing, at exhibition openings, and the like) as well as reproducing catalogue covers, cartoons, prints, even photographs of the artist’s houses. As a result, we are given a strong period feel for these artists, which is backed up by extensive research, much of it footnoted. Quite simply, this is the most detailed account of the lives and work of these artists.
(l-r) artist George Campbell; Flowers on a Shore (1951) by Daniel O'Neill, image courtesy National Museums NI; Bedroom at Ballylough (1956) by Arthur Armstrong, image courtesy National Museums NI
There are some problems. It is not an easy book to consult. The index is slim and faulty; a number of the illustrations are misnumbered; there is no List of Illustrations, or even a List of Contents. Often the book is repetitive, and the prose style veers towards the ungrammatical at times.
However, much can be forgiven as so much material has been unearthed within its one hundred and sixty pages, and the book is so well illustrated: one hundred and forty-nine illustrations of work, along with approximately two hundred and sixty figures.
Brian McAvera, February 2025
Thanks to the McAvera & Walker Library, we have copies of this and many other Adam’s catalogues in the NI Visual Art Research Library & Archive at the Golden Thread Gallery. NIVARLA will launch formally in February, and items in the rare and special collection will be available to view by appointment. We will share more information on how to access and use NIVARLA soon!
The Northern Ireland Visual Art Research Library & Archive is supported by the Ampersand Foundation, with many books and archive items donated and on loan from the McAvera & Walker Library.
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