George Bernard O'Neill

George Bernard O'Neill (17 July 1828 – 23 September 1917), was a prolific Irish genre painter, from 1859 a member of the Cranbrook Colony of artists.

He was a successful student, regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1847 onwards, and gained a reputation as a painter of charming narrative scenes.

Scenes of rural life - virtuous, innocent, sometimes slightly comical, sometimes sentimental, painted on small domestic scale, appealed to middle-class customers.

This feeling of public success was expressed in O'Neill's painting 'Public Opinion', which had been shown at the Royal Academy in 1863 (at present at the Leeds City Art Gallery).

Most of O’Neill's paintings associated with the Cranbrook Colony look like sentimental depictions of children and rustic families, but they might have been intended for more serious purpose.