Seán O'Sullivan (painter)

Primarily a portrait painter, O'Sullivan composed works featuring many of the leading political and cultural figures in Ireland, including Éamon de Valera, Douglas Hyde, W B Yeats, and James Joyce.

[8] In 1932 the Saorstát Eireann Official Handbook was published as record of Cumann na nGaedheal’s years in government, which included a multitude of O'Sullivan's illustrations.

The United States was glossed over with only the cities of New York, Boston, and Springfield being noted, and England's only significant detail was the mention of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw.

[13] He created commemorative stamps which depicted his paintings of Douglas Hyde and Sir William Rowan Hamilton in 1943, Edmund Ignatius Rice in 1944,[1] and in 1966 O'Sullivan's paintings of the seven signatories of the Irish proclamation, Éamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett, Patrick Pearse, Seán MacDiarmada, Thomas MacDonagh and Tom Clarke, were featured on stamps produced by An Post.

In 1946, an invitation from the 1st Battalion Dublin Brigade featured a photograph of an original O’Sullivan oil painting of Commandant Tom Byrne who was the last surviving Irish officer who had served in the Boer War.

[17] O'Sullivan's body was carried to St Teresa's Church, Clarendon Street for his funeral, and buried in Deans Grange Cemetery, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.

The Irish Times article covering this event describes O'Sullivan as a "big, double bass-voiced artist who had a dual genius – for unequalled draughtsmanship and for living.

[24] His documentation of prominent Irish cultural, political and social figures of the early to mid-20th century makes up a significant part of his collection of works.

His 1958 portrait of Peig Sayers is a part of the archive of The Blasket Foundation, dedicated to the conservation of the historical community and culture of the island, which is no longer inhabited.