George Campbell RHA (1917-1979) Domino Players Oil on board, 35 x 44.5cm, (13.75 x 17.5'') Signed, inscribed with title verso, also known as ''The Evening Session'' 'I only paint,' said George...

George Campbell RHA (1917-1979) Domino Players Oil on board, 35 x 44.5cm, (13.75 x 17.5'') Signed, inscribed with title verso, also known as ''The Evening Session'' 'I only paint,' said George Campbell, 'people whom I know very well. I know fishermen, I know men who dig in fields. I know guitarists, I know gypsies and their children. I don't ever try to step out of what I know best.' He liked to depict figures absorbed in what they were doing and unaware of the world around them. They are frozen in that moment, with that particular gesture and that particular stance. He favoured characters 'passed over by civilisation, just having their being, their bewildered, dignified being, all dressed up Beckett figures, a little like us, I feel'. All slow and quiet and preoccupied; he could hold the moment like a note of music. There is a timelessness and a universality to this group of men which is very moving. These Malague?os would be equally at home in Connemara, as was the artist himself. Campbell is observing but at the same time engaging with this group of men as they end their day with a get-together and a gossip, a pastime which, according to his wife Madge, he enjoyed immensely. There is a photograph of George, taken in 1978, which perfectly sums up his love of the two countries he called home, Ireland and Spain, through his love of music. He looks confidently into the lens resting his hand on a flamenco guitar whilst sporting a tie emblazoned with the Irish harp. It is tempting to see him as an amalgam of those two twentieth-century icons, James Joyce and Pablo Picasso. Like his fellow Irishman, Guinness in hand, he is Celtic, obsessive, educated and cultured whilst under the Mediterranean sun, Moscatel in copa, he is aesthetic, confused yet dominant. Like them he observed and studied the human condition. Like theirs Campbell's is not an easy language. The viewer must contemplate and consider the work. With familiarity comes comprehension. S?le Connaughton-Deeny, 2007

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