O’Neal has produced a wide ranging body of work, portraits of friends and associates, ironic images fromany parts of the world, and continually added to projects that have lasted two or three decades.
O’Neal came to New York City from Washington, D.C. in 1967 and still resides in Greenwich Village. He joined the faculty of The New School University in 1970 and remains affiliated with that school as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. For the decade of the 1970s, he was associated with the modern dance company, Choreographer’s Theater, for whom he not only created sound and visual collages, but also, on occasion, danced. In the same decade, he built and operated two recording studios in Greenwich Village. During the years 1983 through 1995, he was an advisor to the Justice Department and is currently on the Board of Directors of various arts organizations, galleries and corporations, most prominently the Jazz Foundation of America/Jazz Musician’s Emergency Fund, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and The Jazz Gallery.