Roderic OConor (1860 - 1940)

Nu Brun, Assis (1913)

Oil on canvas, 65 x 54cm (25½ x 21¼")

Signed and dated (19)13
Atelier stamp verso

 

Provenance: Hotel Drovot, Paris 'Vente O'Conor' Feb...

Roderic OConor (1860 - 1940)

Nu Brun, Assis (1913)

Oil on canvas, 65 x 54cm (25½ x 21¼")

Signed and dated (19)13
Atelier stamp verso

 

Provenance: Hotel Drovot, Paris 'Vente O'Conor' Feb 1956; Sotheby's London 2/11/1983 Lot 72 where purchased by current owners

Exhibited: Roderic OConor - Shades of a Master, The Hunt Museum, June - Aug 2003, Cat No. 19;

Also exhibited: Paris in the 11e. Salon d'Automne in 1913 as No.1596 in a group of six works by OConor with the title Jeune femme assise. Works by Matisse and Bonnard were also in the same exhibition.
This work was painted in his Paris studio before the summer which he spent in Cassis in the south of France.

Our thanks to Roy Johnston for this extra information

 

Literature: "Roderic O'Connor" (1992) by Jonathan Benington Cat. No. 164; "Shades of a Master" Hunt Museum 2003 (illustrated)

 

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, Toulouse-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".

 

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