Brian O'Hanlon
Little is known about Brian O'Hanlon. He was a painter and illustrator whose career seems to have extended over at least 55 years. A search of auction records reveals a number of oil paintings and watercolours sold over the past 15 or so years, the earliest being a watercolour of Crookston Castle, built in the Pollok district of Glasgow in around 1400AD. This was dated 1931.

The most recent dated work is from 1988. This later work, in oil, is primarily of rural scenes — fields of poppies, river estuaries, the Fenlands. One painting is described as looking through the window of a fisherman's cottage out onto a beach, possibly near the Suffolk coastal town of Aldeburgh.

Armed with this connection to Suffolk, it is possible that O'Hanlon is (or was) Brian Francis O'Hanlon, whose death, at the age of 77, was registered in Bury St Edmunds in 1991. Brian Francis O'Hanlon was born 23 June 1914. The only other official trace would appear to be a marriage (in Croydon, Surrey) in 1944 to Margaret Watson. I believe he was born in Scotland, which would make sense if the teenage O'Hanlon was painting Scottish scenery in the 1930s. This should be considered speculation only.

In the late 1960s, O'Hanlon would appear to have been producing romantic illustrations in colour for women's magazines and at least one cover for June and School Friend (1968). How extensive O'Hanlon's contributions in these areas were is unknown.