Roderick O'Conor

Roderic O'Conor (Irish 1860-1940) and Man Reading: Two Works Each unsigned, each with estate stamp atelier O'CONOR Each graphite on paper; each apparently in good condition. Each framed.* Sight size of first: 11 x 8-1/2 in (27.9 x 21.6 cm); Sight size of second: 8-1/2 x 11 in (21.6 x 27.9 cm)

Lot 18 RODERIC O'CONOR (irish 1860-1940) "STILL LIFE - APPLES AND PEARS IN A BOWL" With the 'ATELIER O'CONOR' stamp verso, oil on board (Carton Pochade No. 8) 14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7cm) provenance: The Solomon Gallery, Dublin, Ireland. Private Collection, Virginia. note: We would like to thank Dr. Roy Johnston for his assistance cataloguing this lot. This painting will be accompanied by a letter discussing this work signed by Dr. Roy Johnston. Estimate $30,000-50,000 The painting is executed on a prepared artist's laminate board that exhibits a very slight convex warp. Drying crackle is evident in the heaviest areas of paint including the right side of the table, and in some of the fruit. A very small loss is seen in the red stem of the rear left fruit. The paint is well adhered to the support overall. Examination in UV light indicates that the painting is either unvarnished or has a thin layer of synthetic varnish. There is no inpainting and the painting is in near pristine condition. Descriptions provided in both printed and on-line catalogue formats do not include condition reports. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging. Interested bidders are strongly encouraged to request a condition report on any lots upon which they intend to bid, prior to placing a bid. All transactions are governed by Freeman's Conditions of Sale. Sold for $21,000

Lot Description Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940) A Quiet Read oil on board 29½ x 20¾in. (75 x 52.8 cm.) Painted circa 1912. Lot Condition Report I confirm that I have read this Important Notice and agree to its terms. View Condition Report Provenance probably, The Artist's Studio Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 1956. with Crane Kalman Gallery, London. Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 9 May 1996, lot 89, where purchased by the present owner. Exhibited Dublin, Milmo-Penny, Roderic O'Conor Private View, May - June 2001, no. 10, as 'Girl in a white Blouse'. View Lot Notes › By the decade 1910-1920, O'Conor's art returned to more 'academic standards of representation, with carefully delineated and modelled forms painting in restrained colours ... He relinquished landscape paintings in favour of female figure subjects, still lifes and the occasional self-portrait. He expended the utmost care in the placing of figures, objects and backgrounds in order to achieve balanced and harmonious compositions' (see J. Benington, Roderic O'Conor, Dublin, 1992, pp. 123-124).

Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940) Red Rocks, Brittany oil on paper laid on board 18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61 cm.) Painted circa 1898-99. with Crane Kalman Gallery, London, November 1972, where purchased by Dr O'Driscoll. Lady Herbert; Christie's, London, 13 June 1986, lot 390A. Anonymous sale; James Adam & Sons, Dublin, 28 May 1997, lot 5, where purchased by the present owner. Selected property from a Private Collector J. Benington, Roderic O'Conor, Dublin, 1992, p. 198, no. 72. Dublin, Municipal Gallery, 1996. Dublin, Milmo Penny, Roderic O'Conor Private View, May - June 2001, no. 4, as Seascape, Brittany. In summer of 1898 O'Conor visited Pont-Aven in Brittany, where he would remain for the next five years and which provided a rich source of inspiration for his paintings. At around this time, he began a series of seascapes in which he responded to the primal energy created by the sea at the rocky Penmarch peninsula at the coastal village of St Guénolé, and where he lived for several months in a hotel beside the lighthouse. By the summer, he had moved onto the Belle-Ile, one of the largest of the Breton islands and popular with artists, such as Monet, Slewinski and John Peter Russell, the Australian artist who became a friend. Discussing this fertile period of O'Conor's landscape painting, Jonathan Benington (op. cit., pp. 81-82) comments, 'The Irishman studied the way the angry sea pounded the land, churning itself into whirlpools of foam and spindrift ... Sometimes he was moved to paint just an expanse of sea and sky, eliminating the foreground so as to create a greater sense of immediacy ... As the series continued, O'Conor allowed the naturally red rock-formations of the Breton coast to dominate his compositions, painting them in heightened shades of crimson and orange. By using colour arbitrarily, for its own sake, he obtained a degree of abstraction which anticipated that of the Fauves five years later. The brilliant, flattened hues of the Promontory, Brittany (1898-99, Bristol Museums and Art Gallery), for instance defy comparison with the work of his contemporaries, excepting perhaps a few pictures by Gauguin and the Nabi'.

Roderic O'Conor (Irish, 1860-1940) La Rivi�re stamped 'Atelier/O'CONOR' (lower right), watercolour heightenedwith bodycolour 24.5 x 34.5cm (9 5/8 x 139/16in). Estimate: �2,000 - 3,000, � 2,300 - 3,400 Request Condition Report PROVENANCE: Collection Roderic O'Conor, H�tel Drouot, Paris, 6 February1956; Sotheby's, 21 October 1959, lot 27 (1 of3); Christie's, 9 June1978, lot 78; D.T.H.Clarke; Sotheby's, The Irish Sale, 18 May 2001,lot 283. LITERATURE: Jonathan Benington, 'Roderic O'Conor: a Biography with a Catalogueof his Work', Irish Academic Press, Dublin 1992, p. 234, no.413. Nearly all the rural sites O'Conor frequented in France between1886 and 1904 featured rivers that he took the opportunity toinclude in his landscape paintings and etchings � the River Loingin Grez and Montigny, the Aven in Pont-Aven and the La�ta in LePouldu. At most of these sites the river banks were bordered bywoods, avenues or groups of trees which, with their reflections,provided the painter with a vertical emphasis for his compositionas well as an opportunity to echo the movement of the water in thatof the adjacent foliage. The only exceptions to this generalarrangement were flat sections of the Loing around Grez and theestuary of the La�ta, which broadened and became more windswept asit approached the sea. La Rivi�re, with its predominantlyblue-green palette and its wet-on-wet technique allowing colours tobleed into each other, is typical of the watercolour landscapesO'Conor painted in Brittany in the second half of the 1890s. Theblue hills visible in the background of the painting suggest thatthis is a view looking up river, most probably from a location onthe La�ta between Le Pouldu and Quimperl� in Finist�re. However,one cannot rule out the possibility that the painting is aspontaneous record of a view encountered on one of his travelsthrough Brittany in search of new subject matter. Only some 25 or so watercolours have survived from O'Conor's hand,most of them devoted to landscapes, seascapes or floral subjects.La Rivi�re belongs to a smaller sub-set that do not combine drawnlines with washes of colour � testimony to the sheer confidence ofthe artist's approach. We are grateful to Jonathan Benington for his assistance incataloguing this lot.