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Daniel O'Neill (1920-1974) Sunday Morning oil on board signed 'D O'Neill' lower right and titled verso h:51  w:68.70 cm. Provenance: Sotheby's, London, 30th October 2007 lot 8; deVere's, Dublin, 10th June 2008 lot 52; Private Collection In the foreground of this classic painting by O'Neill, stands the solitary and enigmatic figure of a dark-haired young woman, wearing a white blouse and red dress, her hands clasped together. The young woman's face is in shadow. Behind her, in the distance, are huddled three women and a child. Beyond is a vividly coloured coastal landscape, with blue sea in the far distance. Using a palette knife, and applying colour directly from the tube, O'Neill achieves spectacular effects, with alternating bands of blue and green pigment suggesting the landscape, and heavily textured paint suggesting bright sun hidden behind clouds, lighting up the cobalt blue sea in the background. O'Neill often gave his paintings titles that evoke time or place, such as Sunday Afternoon or Sunday Morning. The vibrant colours, evoking the painterly style of Jack B. Yeats, suggest that this is a relatively late work in the artist's career. Born in 1920 in Belfast, O'Neill trained as an electrician before working for a time in the shipyards and as a housepainter. Always interested in art, he attended evening classes at the Belfast College of Art, where he became friendly with Gerard Dillon and Sidney Smith. The first exhibition of O'Neill's paintings was held in 1940 in Belfast, and shortly afterwards he began to show with the Waddington Gallery in Dublin. In 1949, he visited Paris, seeing at first hand the work of painters such as Vlaminck and Utrillo, whose work he had, up to that time, known almost entirely through reproductions in art magazines, and admiring their use of palette knife rather than brush. In the early 1950s, after some years in London, O'Neill returned to Ireland, where, along with Dillon and George Campbell, he became a member of the Ulster Contemporary Group. With his wife and child he settled in the village of Conlig, Co Down, where Campbell and Dillon were also living. Always a restless spirit, in 1958 O'Neill moved back to London. However a successful exhibition of his work, held at the McClelland Galleries in Belfast in 1970, prompted him to return to Northern Ireland, but not long afterwards the gallery was forced to close as a result of 'The Troubles'. O'Neill died in 1974, aged just 54. Peter Murray, March 2023