Paul Henry ONeill

Paul Henry O'Neill 1935-, American business executive and government official, b. St. Louis, Mo., grad. Fresno State College (B.A.) and Indiana Univ. (M.P.A.). A Republican, O'Neill began his career in the federal government in 1961 as a systems analyst in the Veterans Administration and worked his way up in the bureaucracy to become a top official at the Office of Management and Budget (1967-77) under presidents Nixon and Ford. He was an initiator and supporter of government block grants. Leaving government service, O'Neill soon became a corporate executive, holding the post of chairman and chief executive of Alcoa (1987-99). In 2000, O'Neill was named secretary of the treasury by President George W. Bush. A supporter of revamping social security to permit individuals to invest in stocks and bonds, he was unusually plain-spoken for a treasury secretary. He resigned at the request of the White House in Dec., 2002, as the administration turned its focus to the lackluster economy and its potential effect on the 2004 election. O'Neill's profound disagreements with the Bush administration's policies were subsequently revealed when he made detailed accusations of one-sided, prearranged, and politically determined decision-making processes.

Bibliography: See R. Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill (2004).

Henry, Paul (1876–1958), the most influential Irish landscapist of the 20th century. Born in Belfast, he was educated at Belfast Government School of Art, the Académie Julian, and Whistler's Académie Carmen, Paris. In 1900 he began working as an illustrator on various journals in London, while also exhibiting charcoal drawings of landscapes at the Goupil Gallery and other venues. He was a founder member of the Allied Artists' Association (1908). In 1910, at the recommendation of a friend, he went to Achill Island, an experience that shaped the rest of his career. He remained there for a decade. The island, its people, and their way of life, which he recorded with a Post‐Impressionist rigour, at first dominated his subject matter, but from about 1917 he travelled more widely in Connemara, painting the landscape itself in scenes usually empty of people yet redolent of humanity, a characteristic which lends a universality to his work. In 1919 he moved to Dublin and the following year founded the Society of Dublin Painters as a forum where young and experimental artists could show their work. He achieved popular acclaim during the 1920s and 1930s, but thereafter his work became repetitive.

Bibliography

Kennedy, S. B. , Paul Henry (2000)

S. B. Kennedy

Harvey, Sir (Henry) Paul (1869–1948), scholar and diplomat, was the compiler of The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1932), the first of the Oxford Companions, the idea for which originated in a suggestion from Kenneth Sisam at the Oxford University Press in 1927–8. Harvey went on to compile the Oxford Companions to Classical Literature (1937) and French Literature, completed by Janet E. Heseltine (1959).