where he caused a bit of a sensation by selling everything, with most pieces going way beyond their estimates.

Home is a charming 1820s' hunting lodge in the hinterland of Co Wexford, where he finds much of the subject matter that makes his paintings so popular. It's light years away from the time when he didn't believe he could make a living from painting . . . in the past decade he has had some of the best painting years of his life.

There's nothing pushy about Mark O'Neill, so that is not how the soft-spoken artist got to be one of Ireland's most popular painters. While many artists come into their own at age 50, 60 or even 70, Mark O'Neill has cracked it at the tender age of 42. So how did he survive in a fiercely commercial, competitive world? Education, perseverance and luck.

And being born more or less with a paintbrush rather than a silver spoon in his mouth helped. In childhood, he and his siblings were inundated with artist's materials by parents who were desperately trying to keep them occupied between school terms. His father was a roving ambassador for the Unilever company and the family would arrive in a country . . . South Africa, Mauritius . . . and have to wait weeks before the next school term began. "With all the moving around, I lost years at school, " O'Neill says.

Born in 1963 in Birkenhead, Lancashire, (his mother comes from Co Laois and his father from Cork), O'Neill had been visiting Ireland since he was six, finally coming to live here permanently 20 years ago.

Amidst all the moving from country to country, the most enjoyable stint he had was in Drogheda, where his father worked for five years. From the age of nine to 13, his home was in Bellewstown, near the racecourse. A little later he found himself in Crosby, in Liverpool, at a Christian Brothers school, where he was lucky enough to find Colin Wilkinson, a no-nonsense art teacher who grounded his students in the discipline of drawing.

"I remember he set up fantastic still life subjects for us: a rusty bicycle; old dustbins. We grappled with the drawing of them for months.

After school, O'Neill went to Kingston College of Art in London. After graduation, many of his peers made a living from commercial art.

"When I was struggling with my painting, I envied them and I thought I had made a terrible mistake." He took up teaching Leaving Cert students in Killeigh in Co Offaly. "I always emphasised drawing before moving on to oils, and I had small classes and fantastic students . . . many of them have gone on to NCAD.

"I never imagined that I would make a living from painting. There were exhibitions in galleries and restaurants but I didn't know where I was going. I exhibited at the Killarney Arts Gallery, and I had my first ever exhibition at the Courtyard restaurant in Tullow. My first sell-out show was at The Forge gallery in Collon. I was able to meet the electricity bills and put insulation in the roof, but I always thought 'It's not forever'."

O'Neill was in his 30s when he began to have success with his work. "I just love the painting part of it. I have a private little house where I paint, and I lock myself in and no one knows where I am."

Mixing surfaces as well as subject matter are important to him: the softness of flowers, the waxiness of fruit and the high sheen of porcelain.

His challenge is to represent the feeling of a leaf on a plate, the reflection of a yellow lemon in a white jug. "I am calculating all the time. When I get fed up with still life I go back to animals, especially cows."

O'Neill is now determined to get away from his more photographic representation of things and to change to looser brush strokes . . . 'The Box Garden' is one of the loosest paintings in the exhibition. "I can count the brush strokes". He is influenced by the US painter John Singer Sargent, who did what was termed 'swagger portraits' since his work was so loose.

O'Neill is excited by his discovery of top quality materials.

He prefers special ranges to the cheaper, synthetically made paints. "For the Adams sale, I spent crazy money on paints. I used nicer materials than I have ever used before . . .

Windsor & Newton paints off the internet. You can pay anything up to 50 for a small tube of paint. Brushes are important, too. I wouldn't buy just any old hoghair brush but a good one for maybe 12."

In the Adams sale (and for the first time ever), his paintings were auctioned rather than sold at a fixed price. "It was a big gamble. There were no reserves. If people hadn't turned up to buy, the whole show could have gone wrong.

It trebled anything I have ever done before." The sale made 475,000. He believes that this is the first time in Ireland or the UK that a living artist has put a collection of work to auction rather than through regular exhibition. He vanished before the auction started but not before he heard an elderly gentlemen's summation of the still life: "I don't like food on plates".

How to buy art

1. If you're thinking of buying a painting you like, find out as much about the artist as possible. If the artist is living, find out where he/she shows and if their work has increased in value over the past few years.

2. Regular visits to auctions, galleries and exhibitions train the eye so that you learn to know the difference between a good and a bad picture.

3.Choose an artist who has a good track record and steady reputation.

4. The only maxim that really stands up when buying art is ' buy what you like'. If you are spending a signi"cant amount of money, get advice from art experts . . . managers of good galleries and curators of art institutions.

5. Don't forget to haggle after an auction. Auctioneers will sometimes reduce the prices of pieces that didn't sell.

6.Haggling is okay in galleries, too.

Ask if they will allow you pay for a painting in stages, or take a painting home to see if it suits your decor, or if they have a buy-back scheme?

7. Some pieces need more attention than others. A fairly valuable oil painting needs to be kept away from radiators, damp and direct sunlight.

8. Always check the provenance of a painting . . . inspect its condition, signature and history.

9.It's not wise to put all your eggs in one basket since not everything will go up in value. Seasoned buyers mix cheaper but higher-risk works from young artists with more expensive but lower-risk works by well-established artists.

10. Good craftsmanship matters.

If it looks wrong, it probably is.