Adam's The Antoinette and Patrick J.Murphy Collection 23rd October 2019

54 40 RODERIC O’CONOR (1860-1940) Nu Brun, Assis of ‘Dark-Haired Nude Seated’ (1913) Oil on canvas, 65 x 54cm (25.5 x 21“) Signed and dated (19)13 Atelier stamp verso Provenance: Hotel Drouot, Paris ‘Vente O’Conor’ Feb 1956; Sotheby’s London 2/11/1983 Lot 72 where purchased by previous owners; Adam’s, Important Irish Art, 23.03.2016, Lot No.69, where purchased by current owners. Exhibited: Paris in the 11e. Salon d’Automne in 1913 as No.1596 in a group of six works by O’Conor with the title Jeune Femme Assise , works by Matisse and Bonnard were also in the same exhibition. Limerick, The Hunt Museum, ‘Roderic O’Conor - Shades of a Master ’, June - Aug 2003, Cat No. 19; Literature: Jonathan Benington, R oderic O’Conor , 1992, Cat. No. 164; Shades of a Master, Hunt Museum 2003, illustrated. € 30,000 - 40,000 Dr.Roy Johnston tells us that this work was painted in O’Conor’s Paris studio before the summer which he spent in Cassis in the south of France. Nora Hickey writing in “ Shades of a Master ” (2003) said of this picture:- “The influence of Gauguin and the Fauves is apparent in the accentuated outline of this studio nude and the broad directional brushstrokes of the background, which recall O’Conor’s earlier feathered brushwork and striped paintings. The sorrowful expression, a common feature of O’Conor’s nudes and sympathetic treatment of the subject invite the viewer to empathise with the sitter.” O’Conor was friendly with Gauguin and included a work called “ Te nave nave fenua” (Delightful land) amongst his important art collection which also included works by Renoir, Derain, Bonnard, Manet, Tou- louse-Lautrec and Modigliani amongst many of the other greats. He was not only a great collector but “he was an innovator who had significant influence on his contemporaries and a younger generation of English artists in Paris such as the painter Matthew Smith who referred to O’Conor as his master”.