May O’Neill (nee Courtney; born 20 July 1931) is an Australian artist and arts leader based in Merriwa, Western Australia.
History
May Courtney O’Neill is a West Australian artist, art teacher and arts administrator who took a very supportive and collaborative community-based approach to her art practice, especially towards women in regional WA and the fast-developing northern beach suburbs of Perth during the 1970’s and 1980’s. For example she lived in Carnarvon and Shark Bay for 13 years setting up and supporting arts groups in the region. This was a long journey away from where she was born in Salford, Greater Manchester, in the United Kingdom.
She was brought up by her father John Joseph Courtney, who could speak five languages fluently and worked for the British and Continental Steamship Company. Her mother left when May was only eight years old. Her childhood memories of Old Trafford were of playing in the bomb craters of WWII. As was the norm at the time for girls, she left school at 14 years old to work in administration. She married in 1952, emigrating to Australia in 1963 with her husband Roland and two children.
Early Influences
In 1973 she was nearly killed in a bad car accident when a truck hit her side on. She took up painting after this near death experience. Hungarian watercolourist Zoltan Szabo is a major influence on her work.
Awards
She has won the Whitford Art Group watercolour award three times and has been recognised for her work by the City of Wanneroo, City of Mandurah and the Rockingham Arts Council. She was also heavily involved in arts administration as a Foundation member and Past President of the Whitford Art Group, and Foundation member of the Wanneroo Art Society, Watercolour Society of Western Australia, the Carnarvon Art Society and The Art Society of Western Australia. She has exhibited widely and her work is held in many private collections.
Significant Works
Three watercolours are held in the Fairview Art Collection in Subiaco, Perth, the most famous being a very early work, Edgewater painted in 1975 on the banks of Lake Joondalup.
