104
63
Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940)
Le Drap Blanc or Reclining Female Nude (1907)
Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 81.2cm (25 x 32”)
Atelier stamp verso
Provenance: Vente O’Conor, Crane Kalman Gallery, London, Bernard G. Gore, Peter Nahum, from whom purchased by John P. Reihill, 1979, Deepwell,
Blackrock, Co. Dublin
Exhibited: Possibly Le Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1909, Cat. No. 1318, under the title Le Drap Blanc
Collector’s Choice Exhibition, Exhibition Hall, Bank of Ireland, Dublin, 1982, Cat. No. 58
Roderic O’Conor-Vision and Expression,The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, 1996, Cat. No. 130
Literature: Roderic O’Conor, Jonathan Bennington, 1992, Cat. No.130 , p.205/6
Roderic O’Conor-Vision and Expression, Dr. Roy Johnston, 1996, p.45, full page colour illustration, p.47
€60,000 - 80,000
When Roderic O’Conor returned to Paris in 1904, having spent the
previous thirteen years painting in Brittany, the studio which he was to
occupy in Montparnasse for more than thirty years had been designed
and built in the classical tradition of Parisian artist ateliers. Entrance to
the studio and living quarters at 102 rue du Cherche-Midi was from
the courtyard of his building, where a door gave access to a short flight
of stairs leading to an inner door on the first floor. Beyond that was a
studio of approximately 80 square metres with a ceiling height of al-
most 3.5 metres. Its main architectural feature was a continuous “wall”
of windows constructed of small panes of glass which admitted natural
light into an interior, later described by the English critic Clive Bell as
“spacious but gloomy.” (1)
O’Conor used this distinctive window feature, essentially the only light
source which was available to him, in several different ways depend-
ing on his choice of subject matter. Still life groupings of ceramic ob-
jects, with bouquets of brightly coloured flowers, fruit, and vegetables
arranged on patterned drapery were typically positioned close to the
window. These he viewed from the side, exploiting the light to dark
transition he saw in their colour and texture which clearly preoccupied
him. He also made portraits and self-portraits and frequently directed
his gaze to the analysis of the female form in many paintings of nude
models. He usually posed his models in the interior of the studio and
took up a viewing position with his back to the window, so that the
quality of light in the studio interior was modified, becoming softer
and more diffuse. Only rarely did he contrive a viewing position such as
that depicted here where an upholstered divan, a frequently used studio
prop, was covered with a white sheet and placed with its back close to
the window. When he posed his model in this context and stood with
his back to the studio interior he was viewing his subject in the tradi-
tional ‘
contre-jour
’mode made popular by the Impressionists. One result
of this viewing position was that shadows were emphasized, so that the
white sheet covering the divan was modified by O’Conor to a mauve tint,
through his perceptive analysis of reflected light from the studio interior.
As usual, O’Conor has very deliberately set the pose, in this case with the
figure extended along the length of the divan to make the most of the
interplay of light and dark areas and the changes from one to the other.
It is a languid pose, with classical overtones bordering on the roman-
tic rather than the sensual, modified by asking his model to give close
visual attention to her raised right arm and hand as she lounged on the
supporting divan, her right leg bent and casually tucked under her fully
extended left leg.
The painting was exhibited by O’Conor at the Salon d’Automne in 1909,
among a group of six works. In each case their titles denote his com-
mitment to studio subjects at that time in his career. In that year he also
had the distinction of being elected to serve as the Vice-President of the
Salon d’Automne jury along with Charles Plumet the noted Partisian
architect and designer of furniture and interiors in the Art Nouveau (2)
style. Through his membership of the painting sub-committee O’Conor
would have reviewed the works submitted by an impressive list of well
established artists which included Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse,
Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, Henri Manguin, Walter Sickert and
John Lavery.
1. Bell, Clive in
Old Friends
, London 1956, p.167
2.The Salon d’Automne had been formed in 1903 and from its inception
it included a section devoted to the decorative arts which were exhibited
on an equal footing with paintings. Unlike the Salon des Indépendants,
paintings to be exhibited were subject to jury selection.
Dr. Roy Johnston
