Beschreibung:

KING AND QUEEN Daniel O'Neill (1920-1974)
Medium: oil on board Dimensions: 76 by 58cm., 30 by 22.7in. Provenance: Gift from the artist to the present owner in 1974 Accompanied by an original pen and ink sketch of the painting and a signed manuscript letter from the artist. King and Queen was painted as a tribute to the artist’s brief but significant friendship ... with the present owner. The two met in 1969 at a Belfast clinic where the present owner was then working and where O’Neill was undergoing treatment for alcoholism. In a written account of their meeting, the owner recalled that O’Neill was “quietly spoken and unassuming in his manner; we managed to build up a good rapport quite readily and he was able to converse freely with me”. They discussed O’Neill’s early years and frequently spoke of painting. O’Neill amused her with anecdotes about his career, such as his mother’s reaction to an early painting of a nude – “Oh Dan, cover her up” – to which request he complied; the resulting work, The Blue Skirt is now in the Ulster Museum. As their friendship grew O’Neill presented a number of impromptu gifts, including a William Conor sketch and two landscape paintings of his own. He asked his new confidante to sit for a portrait, to which she agreed. During one of the portrait sittings, she was accompanied by her then nine year old son. O’Neill encouraged the young boy to do some painting of his own, and promised that one day he would paint a clown for him. Some months later O’Neill telephoned to say he was unable to complete the portrait, and had instead transformed the work into a clown; this too he presented as a gift. In a series of letters to the owner, O’Neill gave news of his progress in the studio, telling her he had been “painting mostly at nights when everything is still and quiet”. An old transistor radio kept him company and he painted to the music of Brahms, Debussy, Mozart, Schubert and Sibelius. Most significantly he credited his return to painting to their friendship. “You without knowing it have given me the most priceless gift possible for any one person to give and this I have recently realised myself – that is the will to paint”. King and Queen was the fourth and final gift. The owner recalls the occasion on which it was presented to her: ”… Dan phoned to ask if I would mind meeting him for coffee in town as he had a painting which he would like to discuss with me. I met up with him in the agreed café. He had a large picture with him, he referred to it as the King and Queen. The painting he said was for me if I would like it, otherwise he would destroy it as it was far too personal for him and he did not want to sell it”. In the course of their conversation O’Neill made a sketch of the composition (included with lot). The gift was accepted but the two were to never see each other again, for shortly thereafter Dan O’Neill died. King and Queen has remained in the same ownership since 1974 and has never before been exhibited in public more