Peter O'Neill

By Ken Hall

Peter O'Neill presides over the largest artist-owned gallery in St. Augustine, Fla., posting sales of more than $500,000 a year, but success didn't come quickly or easily to the New York native. Today, he's scaling the heights, but along the way he's plumbed the depths.

About ten years ago -- after two failed marriages and a botched suicide attempt -- O'Neill found himself in a New Jersey hospital, despondent and in treatment for acute depression. "I felt I had nothing," he said. But looking around, he saw that compared with others, he wasn't so bad off.

So he checked out of the hospital and got on with his life, pursuing a career in real estate. But that didn't work out either. "I was back to square one," O'Neill said. "I had nothing but inner resolve and a heartful of creative need. The question was what to do with it."

O'Neill's childhood dream was to become an artist, but he received little in the way of positive reinforcement. "I liked to draw when I was a kid, but art classes weren't even offered in grade school and high school," he said. "When I'd sketch in my notebook, they'd tell me, 'Stop drawing and pay attention!'"

Still, O'Neill could never shake the feeling that art was his true calling in life. So, with little to lose, he boarded a Greyhound bus for Florida in April 1996, determined to become an artist. "I think I was too numb to realize the risk I was taking," he said. "It was just something I did."

At age 36, he arrived in St. Augustine with exactly $150 in his pocket and nowhere to stay. For a year, he eked out a living as a street artist, doing pencil portraits. His first commission: $15. "That wasn't a lot of money, but it was a huge boost because it confirmed that people would pay for my work," he said.

O'Neill struck up a friendship with a local plein air painter, Charles Dickinson. "My work was terrible at the time, but he always had something positive to say about it," Peter said. "I actually learned how to use oils from Charles. "Watching him mix his palette was very instructional. We're still great friends to this day."

It actually took some time for O'Neill to get to the point where oils were even affordable. "I started out doing pencil sketches because pencils were cheap; I could buy them," he said. "From there, I progressed to watercolors, then acrylics and finally to oils. Today, I work exclusively with oils."

The female form is a recurring subject in many of O'Neill's works. "I love the female figure," he said, "and I've been fortunate to connect with the emotional side of many of my models. When they arrive for a sitting, I generally won't have an idea for a pose or story line for the painting."

But, he continued, after chatting with them for awhile, he'll gauge their mood and find out what's going on in their life. Based on their conversation, a theme for the painting will take form and he'll run with it. "Women are wonderful because if they respect you, they'll open up emotionally," he said. "I try to convey that emotion onto canvas."

O'Neill is entirely self-taught, a fact of which he is quite proud. "I haven't had to unlearn the garbage poured on students in art school," he said. "I never had to shed the concept and design theories. I could immediately make art that connected with people and their emotions."

Early on, O'Neill's style was tight and rigid. Now, he's more painterly. "About two years into my career, I found that I didn't want my paintings to look like photographs, all slick and such," he said. "It was more about the subject than the slickness to me. I continually try to improve my brushwork and palette."

For O'Neill, art is a communication between the viewer and the creator. "It should never be judged," he said. "There is no good or bad art, only the message of the piece. I am living proof of that. I paint from life experience. My work can be sad, sentimental, happy, rude or whatever -- but it must convey feeling at the core level."

Nowhere is that more true than in O'Neill's work, "Two Minutes of Silence," painted in response to the September 11 attacks in Manhattan. The painting depicts a kneeling New York City fireman, his head resting on his shovel, against the backdrop of the collapsed World Trade Center.

So powerful was the imagery of that piece that it was chosen by the FDNY and the office of the mayor to grace the cover of the program for a memorial service held at Madison Square Garden. O'Neill sold the work for $20,000 and donated the money to relief charities. In addition, he has donated 14,000 prints of the work to victims' families, as well as police and fire stations worldwide. The original hangs in the Fireman's Museum in New York City.

In March 2003, O'Neill was commissioned by the Independence Bank of Owensboro, Ky., to create a series of paintings based on the Revolutionary War titled "From Whence We Came." The works depict the struggles of our forefathers.

Struggle is something O'Neill can relate to, having endured years of it himself, but he has today risen in the ranks of his profession to a level of respect and comfort. He credits his relentless drive to his 12-year-old son, Peter, who lives in New Jersey, and his rapid ascent in the art market to his wife and partner, Martha, who handles the marketing side of the business, freeing up Peter to paint and create.

To view more of Mr. O'Neill's art, or to make a purchase, you may visit him online at www.oneillgallery.com; call (904) 808-1311; or e-mail to oneillgallery@bellsouth.net. The Peter O'Neill Gallery, incidentally, is located a short walk from where Peter began doing pencil sketches for $15 eight short years ago.