A NEW exhibition of artist Daniel O'Neill's work opening at Farmleigh Gallery in Dublin next month will be the first retrospective of the late west Belfast painter's output for 70 years.
Curated by art historian Karen Reihill, who published a monograph on O'Neill to mark the centenary of his birth in 2020, the majority of the paintings in Daniel O'Neill: Romanticism and Friendships are being borrowed from private collections – many of which have been unseen in public in over 50 years – along with as paintings from the collections of IMMA, University of Limerick and the Ulster Museum.
It will be O'Neill's first retrospective since his exhibition at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery (now the Ulster Museum) in 1952, which attracted a record attendance for the time.
Highly regarded by critics during his lifetime, Reihill hopes the new exhibition will lead to a reassessment of Daniel O'Neill's place in the history of Irish art.
Born in Belfast, O'Neill had little orthodox training except for a few classes at the city's College of Art. He began painting with watercolours at the age of 15 and spent as much time as possible in the Belfast Reference Library studying Italian renaissance painters.
His talent was eventually spotted by Dublin art dealer Victor Waddington in 1945, who arranged several one man shows followed in his gallery. During the late 1940 and early 1950s, O'Neill participated in over 20 overseas exhibitions of Irish Art which toured Britian, Europe and the USA, intended to showcase the very best of Irish art abroad.
O'Neill moved to London in 1958 and his paintings were then mainly sent to The Waddington Galleries in Montreal, where he gained a new international following. His work was also shown at The Dawson Gallery in Dublin up until 1963.
In 1970, he returned to Belfast with a new and successful exhibition, where critics expressed surprise at the new bright strong colours on display, a departure from the more familiar sombre romantic style of his 1950s output.
O'Neill's final solo exhibition came the following year in Dublin at the Dawson gallery, but the artist's rejuvenated career was cut tragically short by deteriorating health: he died in March 1974 at the age of 54.
To set Daniel O'Neill's work in context, the new exhibition will also feature paintings by his friends and fellow artists Gerard Dillon, Colin Middleton, George Campbell and others.
:: Daniel O'Neill: Romanticism and Friendships runs from March 13 to June 6 at The Farmleigh Gallery in Dublin. See farmleigh.ie for further details.
