signed lower right
also signed and inscribed with title on the reverse
oil on board
20 by 30 inches
Provenance:
Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin
Private Collection, USA
George Campbell was born in Wicklow, the son of the artist Gretta Bowen, but was raised in Belfast. As an artist, he always kept a foot north of the border: he held his first shows in Belfast and Portadown in 1944, and in 1948 showed in London in the company of Gerard Dillon, Daniel O’Neill and Nevill Johnson. This split personality has, I think, held back his reputation to some degree, even though he exhibited over 100 works at the RHA over the years. He certainly refused to curb his urge to step beyond Ireland in artistic terms: he befriended artists like the Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine, and brought a very personal interpretation of Cubism to bear upon the Irish landscape that he celebrated.
This love of the Irish landscape was a defining element at the heart of Campbell’s work, as this great picture perfectly shows. Between extended stays in Paris and Spain (where he was accepted as a master of the flamenco guitar), he painted with Gerard Dillon on Inislackan Island, off the Connemara coast, and thereafter often painted in Mayo, Galway and Sligo.
Writing of this picture, Peter Campbell sums it up beautifully: ‘This painting, probably painted in Connemara or Mayo in the mid-1960s, is from Campbell’s best period, when his appreciation for landscape dovetailed with a strong Cubist sensibility and confident use of paint. Bog and Rock is a strong abstract composition, the focal point being a dark central, roughly cruciform shape surrounded by lighter areas. While there is a general feeling of rock and landscape in the orange, black and brown shapes, the work can be properly described as an abstract composition. While the title suggest an Irish landscape, the method of handling almost certainly stems from Campbell’s interest in the Spanish landscape, as evidenced by the dark rich earth tones and flashes of light.’ (from a private catalogue entry, 2003)
