title: John O'Keeffe (painter)
text: # John O'Keeffe (painter)
  
  John O'Keeffe sometimes O'Keefe (c. 1797 – April 1838) was an Irish portrait and figure painter.
  
  ## Life
  
  Born in Fermoy, County Cork of humble parentage, O'Keeffe began painting at an early age and was apprenticed to a coach painter. He began painting scenes for local theatres, working his way up to religious pictures for local Roman Catholic churches. In 1831 he sent a Portrait of a Lady and Crucifixion to the Royal Hibernian Academy.
  
  He left Cork in 1834 for Dublin and continued to exhibit portrait and subject paintings. A painting from this period, A Sibyl, 1835, now stands in the Museum of Cork (1913). He exhibited a painting of the British army Field Marshal Edward Blakeney at the RHA in 1837. Just as his career was on the rise he died while on a visit to Limerick in April 1838. He left a widow and children.
  
  The Crawford Gallery hold a portrait of Nano Nagle attributed to O'Keeffe.
  
  