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signed and dated l.r.: R.O'Conor / 1890

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Schoneman Galleries, New York;
Private Collection;
Sale, Sotheby's London, 2 May 1990, lot 24, where purchased by the present owner
EXHIBITED

Possibly Paris, Salon des Indépendants, 1890, no.565;
Dublin, Hugh Lane Muncipal Gallery of Modern Art, Roderic O'Conor - Vision and Expression, 1995-2000, no.3 (illustrated in colour in the catalogue, p.27)
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Jonathan Benington, Roderic O'Conor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Dublin 1992, no.10 (illustrated in colour on p.37, plate 5)
CATALOGUE NOTE

Painted within four years of his move from Dublin to Paris in 1886, this remarkable painting in the pointilliste style, is an important example of Roderic O'Conor's early work. It is a significant link between O'Conor's Impressionist influenced French landscapes of a few years earlier and his later Divisionist paintings, of which the best known is his Still life with bottles (1892, Tate Gallery, London). The inspiration is clearly from Georges Seurat and his followers and more obviously from Signac, whose style it closely resembles (see Figs 1 - 3).

It is evident that O'Conor's first four years in France were years of experimentation and discovery in which he tried different approaches to painting, inspired by the best and most progressive work that Paris had to offer. For example, the early impressionist influenced picture 'Groupe de peupliers' also known as 'Autumn Landscape' signed and dated to the year 1886, is in contrast with several early academic portraits of Bretons painted in Pont-Aven circa 1887 (see lot 64 Breton Girl). His academic portrait of the Danish painter and illustrator, Paul Vogelius, accepted at the official Salon in 1888 (no.1930) and the impressionist influenced 'Landscape with road and farm buildings' circa 1889, are further examples of contrasting styles in successive years.

In deciding to leave the conservative and academic art climate of Dublin for Paris in 1886, the twenty six year old O'Conor could scarcely have chosen a more significant year to travel. 1886 was the year of the last Impressionist group exhibition and it was in this exhibition that Seurat first showed his then controversial and now seminal painting A Sunday afternoon on the island of la Grande Jatte. (Collection the Art Institute of Chicago). The painting was shown again later that year in the Salon des Indépendants. Even if he did not see the painting in this exhibition, the young and impressionable O'Conor would scarcely have been unaware of the fierce debate surrounding Seurat's painting style which many of the critics found to be too mechanical. Seurat's paintings and those of his followers became widely exhibited in Paris after 1886 so that O'Conor would have had ample opportunity to become familiar with the 'Neo-Impressionist' tendency.

As the only recorded finished picture in the pointilliste style, the present work clearly demonstrates O'Conor's full understanding of Seurat's style and ideas. However, in contrast to the latter artist's preferences for softer atmospheric effects and stylised forms, O'Conor, already a bold colourist, chose his palette to convey the brilliance of light and warm sunshine as he would have experienced it in the French countryside. His lively jabbing brush marks are full of energy and vigour, not in the least mechanical, and are indicative of the more expressive works which he was to paint within the next four years at Pont-Aven.

It is possible that this painting was the one exhibited by O'Conor as La lisière du bois, in the Salon des Indépendants of 1890 (no.565). Seurat and Signac were members of the exhibition committee that year and the exhibition included several other Neo-Impressionist works by Luce, Pissarro, and Theo van Rysselberghe.

Dr. Roy Johnston