Charles McAuley, landscape and figure painter was born in Glenaan, near Cushendall, Co. Antrim in 1910.

He attended Belfast School of Art but only for a few weeks, considering that the lectures concentrated in still life which was not his first interest. In any event, he found difficulty adjusting to city life, so he returned to the Glens and worked on the farm, still continuing to paint.

In 1929 he won a premier award for Celtic Design. The Arts adjudicator was J. Humbert Craig, the first professional painter he had ever met. McAuley admitted that the well-known artist had a great influence on him and was really responsible for his turning into a professional artist.

Craig suggested that McAuley should send some of his paintings to the RHA in Dublin and three were accepted. The Ulster Academy of Arts also received his work but there was little regular pattern in forwarding pictures to Belfast. He began to paint professionally when he was aged twenty-eight.

In his early days he tended to paint landscapes rather than figures ‘because that was the type of painting people wanted’, but at his fifth annual exhibition in 1977 at Londonderry Arms Hotel, Co. Antrim, he had more paintings of figures.

He painted until a few weeks before his death in 1999.