Though he grew up in Belfast, Campbell spent much of his adult life living and painting in Spain and Dublin, Ireland.
[3] Campbell was working in an aircraft factory at the time of the Belfast Blitz, and began to paint, taking the bomb-damage as his subject.
[6] Owing to the success of the original publication the brothers then published Now in Ulster (1944), an anthology of short stories, essays and poetry by young Belfast writers.
[7] Campbell held a joint exhibition at the William Mol Gallery, Belfast with his brother Arthur in 1944.
A member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, he won the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal in 1966 and the Oireachtas Prize for Landscape in 1969.
[13] After his death the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and An Chomhairle Ealáion joined with the Instituto Cervantes to initiate the George Campbell Memorial Travel Award.