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Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940)
Landscape with Trees, Nueil-sur-Layon
Oil on panel, 37 x 45cm (14½ x 17¾”)
Atelier stamp verso. Signed verso in blue chalk “Roderic O’Conor Nueil-sur-Layon 1935”
Provenance: Vente O’Conor, Hotel Drouot, Seán Ó Criadáin, fromwhom purchased in 1979 by John P.
Reihill, Deepwell, Blackrock, Co. Dublin
Literature: Roderic O’Conor, Jonathan Bennington, 1992, No. 304, p.226
By the time this refined landscape was painted in 1935, in his 75
th
year, Roderic O’Conor had
already made significant decisions with his and his wife’s future in mind. He married Renée Honta
two years earlier on 24 October,1933 at the Mairie for the Paris 6e arrondissement, following a
lengthy relationship. His general health began to give cause for concern and between 1934 and
1935 they made extended visits to the warmer climate of Spain’s southern coast at Torremolinos
near Malaga, where they rented a house close to the beach.
O’Conor disposed of his studio in 1933, and moved in with his new wife, whose apartment at 10
rue Jean Bart was close to Les Jardins de Luxembourg. With the storm clouds of war gathering
in Europe a decision was made to leave Paris and to look for a property at some distance from
the city in a location which would be potentially a more safe and a less threatened environment
than the French capital. O’Conor purchased a property in his wife’s name in the small town of
Nueil-sur-Layon in the Départment of Maine-et-Loire. In interviews with elderly Nueil residents
in 1981 they recalled how O’Conor’s head of silver grey hair was the most distinguishing feature
of his general appearance and how he and his wife, who was described as being “very Bohemian,”
were frequently seen taking walks together in the surrounding countryside.
The house which he purchased was a splendid
maison de Maître
on the edge of the town, adjacent
to the road leading to Doué-la-Fontaine. The house was on an elevated site with a commanding
view over an adjoining field sloping down to a small river which was a tributary of the river Layon.
This field was the location for this well conceived painting which, given his age and general poor
health, shows a remarkable degree of observation and skill in its execution. As he so frequently
liked to do in his paintings, O’Conor has combined several techniques in this work which include
sensitive brushwork generally throughout the group of trees to the left in his composition. The
river bank below the trees reveals evidence of controlled work with the palette knife, in which he
has scraped some of the paint back to the ground and then dragged the palette knife and brush
across the underpainting to give the desired effect. The shallow pool of water has been similarly
treated while in the group of trees to the right he has been more expressive and built the paint up
more thickly, introducing a subtle range of tonal and textural changes.The site of the painting was
so close to their home and so accessible that it is probable that O’Conor set up his easel in the
landscape and worked on the painting on consecutive days until its completion.
Dr. Roy Johnston
€50,000 - 70,000
