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Joseph Milner Kite (1862-1945)
Portrait of a Breton Girl
Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 30.5cm (16 x 12”)
Signed
Exhibited:“
Peintres Anglais en Bretagne
” Exhibition, Musée de Pont-Aven, June - September 2004 No.36
Joseph Milner-Kite was an English artist of the late 19th and early 20th Century who became a long term resident
in France, and who was a central figure in the artists’ colonies of Pont-Aven and Concarneau in Brittany. He was
a friend of several Irish artists, notably John Lavery, and Roderic O’Conor his close contemporary, with whom he
became a lifelong friend. His path crossed with many other Irish artists; indeed, he is a key figure in understanding
the work of W.J. Leech, Katherine McCausland, Aloysius O’Kelly and Samuel Taylor in Concarneau in the early
20th Century.
Milner-Kite developed a vibrant Impressionist style. His Breton work distinctively combines free impressionist
brushwork and radiant sunlight, and a ‘Fauve’ palette, with mid-19th Century Realism, his insubstantial figures cast-
ing substantial shadows upon the ground.
Milner-Kite was born in Taunton, Devon in 1862, the son of a chemist. He moved to London in 1881, then to Ant-
werp, where he was a student at the Academie Royale, 1881-83 spending four seasons in the ‘Antiek’ class. He was
an exact contemporary of Walter Osborne at Antwerp, and is said to have met O’Conor there. In 1883 Kite moved
to Paris, studying at the Academie Julian in the atelier of Bouguereau and Laurens. Here he met Lavery. Kite made
painting excursions to Normandy to Pont-Aven in 1886, Grez-sur-Loing in 1889, and lived in Tangiers, 1887-89.
He met up with O’Conor in Paris and Grez. In 1889, Kite settled permanently in Paris, living in Montparnasse.
During the late eighties, he exhibited in England, and at the Paris Salon, and was an exhibitor at the Salon National
in the nineties. In the early 20th Century, Kite and O’Conor were regular habitués of ‘le Chat Blanc’cafe in the circle
of other expatriate artists and writers, including Gerald Kelly, Somerset Maugham and Clive Bell.
Much of Kite’s career was spent in Brittany, and he spent several winters in Concarneau. he painted scenes of the
fishing fleet and market of fishermen at work in Breton festivals, as well as portraits and landscapes. Most charac-
teristic of Kite are his informal studies of barefoot girls and fisherboys, standing at the water’s edge, casting enticing
reflections in the sea ... Undoubtedly his relaxed, colourful paintings provided a formative influence on O’Kelly,
Taylor and other Irish artists at Concarneau.
Kite met up with Lavery in Beg-Meil in the summer of 1904, and he retained contact with O’Conor in Paris
through the 1920’s and thirties. After O’Conor’s death in 1940, Kite wrote to his widow Reneé : ‘ I always considered
him my best friend. I cherished both the man and his talent,’ ( J. Benington ‘Roderic O’Conor’ 1992, p.155)
In its relaxed brushwork, radiant colouring, and effect of dramatic sunlight, and its sympathy for its subject, a little
Breton girl in bonnet and white collar, this is a quintessential example of one of Milner-Kite’s portraits or figure
studies, painted most likely at Concarneau in the early twentieth century. Strong sunshine falls upon the neck and
shoulder of the girl, highlighting the healthy colouring of her cheeks and the dazzling white (and pink) bonnet and
white collar, and casting a shadow on the front of her face.The figure is dramatically set against freely-brushed green
foliage, while a little plant grows in front of her, suggesting her immersion in verdant nature.
Always striking in Milner-Kite’s work is his cheerful palette: vibrant blues, pinks, greens, reds, umbers, siennas and
whites.
Julian Campbell
€3,000 - 5,000
