George Campbell (painter)

(Frederick) George Campbell (29 July 1917 – 1979) was an Irish painter and writer. Though he grew up in Belfast, Campbell spent much of his adult life living and painting in Spain.

George Campbell was born in Arklow, County Wicklow, the son of Gretta Bowen (1880-1981) and Matthew Campbell (died 1925). He attended school in Dublin before moving to Belfast to live with his widowed mother and family.

Campbell was working in an aircraft factory at the time of the Belfast Blitz, and began to paint, taking the bomb-damage as his subject. He was one of the founders of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943. With his brother Arthur, he published Now in Ulster (1944), an anthology of short stories, essays and poetry by young Belfast writers.

After the war Campbell became increasingly interested in Spain. In 1946 he came to know Spaniards who had settled in Dublin, and when in London painted visiting Spanish dancers in their traditional costume. He finally visited Spain in the early 1950s, encouraged by his friendship with Gerald Dillon and "an interest in bohemian characters". He lived there for much of the next twenty-five years.

Campbell made stained glass windows for Galway Cathedral. He also played flamenco guitar. A member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, he won the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal in 1966 and the Oireachtas Prize for Landscape in 1969. The Spanish government made him a Knight Commander of Spain in 1978.

• (ed. with Arthur Campbell) Now in Ulster, Belfast: A. and G. Campbell, 1944.
• (illus.) Guide to the National Monuments in the Republic of Ireland, 1970.
• An eyeful of Ireland, Dublin: A. Figgis, 1973.