Daniel O'Neill (1920-1974) Girl in the Green Mask Oil on board, 46 x 37.5cm (18 x 14¾) Signed Provenance: With Oriel Gallery, Dublin; with Charles Gilmore, Holywood, Co. Down, where purchased by the present owners. Female figures are common in Belfast-born Daniel O’Neill’s oeuvre. His figures often inhabit an air of ambiguity, whether in full portrait or set in serene Irish landscapes. His female subjects are distinct, with their almond eyes cast in shadow, un-naturally slender yet elegant profiles, and dark features more akin to continental Europe than the island of Ireland. Conceptually adrift and open to interpretation, the portraits composed by the artist inhabit many credible subjective readings: maybe the women represent a sister lost in childhood - a life made all too short; the matriarchal anchor of the family, his mother, who creatively encouraged the young artist; relationships past, a marriage to end in divorce; or later in life the birth of his first child, a daughter. For the Catholic minority Belfast boy born into the Irish war of Independence, perhaps his figures were the representation of Ireland herself, mourning those lost in her name and the countless many who emigrated, never to return. Any one of these life story nodes, both personal and political, are credible interpretations of the artist’s work. Nevertheless, any resolve to these narrative uncertainties remains veiled by O’Neill himself and his untimely death in 1974. Remarking on the artist’s personality, Liam Kelly describes him as “something of a mystery man” - a trait of enigma that unfolds all too well on canvas. Although, less so often do his figures quite literally wear this mystery as Girl in the Green Mask does. The darkened green teal mask frames her distinctly O’Neill-style wide eyes, linking to her hairline and backdrop, all awash in darkened turquoise turned teal. The borders between the flattened background, long flowing hair and mask all become mediating zones rather than distinct boundaries. Girl in the Green Mask’s Delphian-like ambiguity seeks no resolve and instead gestures to an alluring melancholy in motion. Does her head tilt in sorrow or in comfort to greet the upward vitalic brush strokes of O’Neill’s flowers; do the flowers come to fall in her arms to embrace or drift upwards fleetingly; the far lines on the corner of her mouth signal a modest smile rising or one which is fading. Girl in the Green Mask is a melancholic pivoting point, but whether to or from is the punctum of unresolve. Aside from a few classes at Belfast College of Art, O’Neill was primarily self-taught and much is owed to the people and places that fostered his creativity into fruition. From his mother to a bygone bohemian Dublin, and not least of all people like Mr Jenkinson - the head of Belfast reference library. Jenkinson bent the rules in lending out O’Neill illustrated books over weekends, resulting in a young Irish artist’s introduction to the European Masters. A creative, fertile ground came to be when Sidney Smith opened up his studio to O’Neill. The result was a space for contemporaries such as Colin Middleton, Markey Robinson and Gerard Dillon to cross paths or creatively weave together as Dillon did in painting several portraits of O’Neill. Professional certainty was ascertained in the 1940s when Victor Waddington signed the artist to his Dublin gallery, allowing him to paint full time; the professional relationship would last until 1970. By his untimely passing in 1974, he had lived and worked in Belfast, Dublin, London, and Paris; exhibited in over twenty overseas group exhibitions; held solo shows in Dublin, Belfast, and Montreal; and had his first retrospective in 1952. In 2022, Karen Reihill curated the artist’s first retrospective in seventy years at Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin, showcasing work borrowed from collections of IMMA, the University of Limerick, and the Ulster Museum. Some work unseen by the public for over 50 years was opened to critics and audiences, old and new, welcoming new interpretations and further canonising the artist to the status of his contemporaries. Simon Bhuiyan, August 2022