58
In the early years of the 20th century Brittany was supplanted by the Midi as the rural haven in France for
avant garde painters, who were attracted by the greater intensity of light and colour offered by the South.
Inspired by the example of the Fauves, Roderic O’Conor abandoned Paris in 1913 for Cassis, a small
Mediterranean fishing town hedged in on the seaward side by rocky inlets and some of the highest cliffs in
Europe. Here, he rented an old villa and spent one of the most productive periods of his career, painting at
least two dozen oils and several watercolours in the space of nine months.The results of this creative burst
of energy must have satisfied him for he showed four of the Cassis pictures at the 1913 Salon d’Automne
in Paris, interrupting his work by a fortnight in order to deliver the pictures personally to the exhibition.
O’Conor revelled in his new surroundings and seized the opportunity to paint directly from nature, an
approach he had not practiced for nearly a decade since leaving Brittany for Paris in 1904. Like Cezanne
and Matisse before him, he made the discovery that the hotter Mediterranean sun infused even the shad-
ows with radiant colour, contributing a range of blues, purples and dark greens to his palette which could
be juxtaposed against their contemporaries – the orange, yellow and red of scorched earth, blossom, and
sunshine. In the present work O’Conor shows the mountainous landscape of the Montagne de la Canaille,
which provides the dramatic backdrop for the town and surrounding countryside, using a combination of
strong, vibrant greens, rich mauves and luminous orange counterpoised with subtle stripes in the pale blue
sky which accommodates an early evening moon.
In his review of the 1913 Salon d’Automne exhibition, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire praised O’Conor’s
submissions comparing his work with that of Gauguin. His comments were most probably inspired by the
Irishman’s reversion to a palette of rich, contrasting colours. O’Conor may not have accepted Gauguin’s
invitation to the South Seas in 1894, but he did discover his own sun drenched paradise nearly twenty years
later in the South of France.
We are grateful to Jon Benington, whose research and writings form the basis of this catalogue entry.
€150,00 - 250,000
39
Roderic O’Conor RHA (1860-1940)
The Farm, Provenance
Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92cm (29 x 36”)
Stamped “atelier O’CONOR’ on the reverse
Provenance:
Hotel Drouot, Paris, Vente O’Conor, 7th February 1956
Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London
Ogilvy and Mather, London
Sale, Sothebys, 18th May, 2000, lot 104
Private Collection, Ireland
Exhibited: London, Roland, Browse & Delbanco,
French Pictures of the 19th and 20th Century,
1958, No.39
London, Roland, Browse & Delbanco,
Roderic O’Conor
, 1961, No.1
London, Roland, Browse & Delbanco,
Roderic O’Conor, A Selection of his Best
Work,
1971, No. 3
London, Barbican Art Gallery,
Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940,
1985, No. 65
Literature: Jonathan Benington,
Roderic O’Conor, A Biography with a Catalogue of his Work
,
Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1992, p.211, no.172, colour pl.54, illustrated
