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Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940)
NUDE IN THE STUDIO
oil on canvas
with O’Conor Atelier stamp on reverse; with typed Crane Kalman Gallery [London] label on reverse
21_ x 18_in. (55_ x 46.36cm)
Provenance:
with The Crane Kalman Gallery, London; Where purchased by Barnett Shine; Private collection
This quietly contemplative nude model was painted by Roderic O’Conor in his rue du Cherche-Midi studio in the Montparnasse
quarter of Paris, where he lived and painted for thirty years after his return to Paris in 1904 following a thirteen year period of
residence in Brittany at Pont-Aven and at Rochefort-en-Terre in Morbihan.
The change in O’Conor’s environment from rural France to the busy and artistically competitive arena of the Paris art world early
in the 20th century marked the beginning of a period of detachment from landscape themes, and a greater engagement with
traditional studio subjects, including still-lifes, portraits, figure studies and paintings of unclothed female models.
In O’Conor’s first-floor studio there was one entire wall comprised of small panes of glass admitting natural light into an interior
described by Clive Bell in his memoir, Old Friends (1956), as being “spacious but gloomy.” For this painting O’Conor chose to pose his
model deep in the studio interior taking up a viewing position with his back to the wall of windows. As a result the quality of light
which illuminated his subject is soft and quite diffuse, unlike his more frequently used rich contrasts of colour which appear in other
figure paintings and still-lifes where the subject was placed much closer to the light source. Behind the seated figure we see the
solid mass of the large cast iron stove, which was the only source of heating in his studio and which appears in many of his studio
paintings.
O’Conor typically preferred to take a direct approach to his studio paintings, working initially in broad generalised tonal masses with
little preliminary drawing as he had done in his landscape paintings from Brittany, and from Cassis in the Midi where he painted in
1913. For this portrait however, O’Conor began by making a series of preliminary sketches and drawings of his model, both clothed
and unclothed (more than ten such drawings have been identified), with slight variations to the pose and the positioning of her
right arm, which in the painting is bent at the elbow and rests on the arm of the chair to provide a support for her slightly inclined
head.
He also worked on a heavier grade of canvas than usual having a pronounced texture to which he applied a thin stain, deliberately
leaving background areas untouched as the painting progressed. Selected passages in the model’s upper body and head were
similarly treated. Thicker paint was then applied to her upper body as he modelled the forms while keeping to the generally
restrained technique and the mood of the painting. It is only in the green drapery on the armchair and in the white sheet or towel
covering her left leg that we see O’Conor’s typically vigorous and direct brush strokes and his mixing and blending of the oil paint
directly on the canvas.
This model is also the subject of a particularly strong and highly finished portrait known by the title Rouge et Vert which he
exhibited at the Salon d’Automne of 1919, in which she wears a red dress and is seated against a background of patterned red and
tan fabric which is generously draped in front of a green wall.
Seated Nude was purchased from the Crane Kalman Gallery in London in 1969 by the enthusiastic O’Conor admirer and collector,
Barnett Shine. Over the years he and his wife made several donations from their collection including in 1977 what is perhaps
O’Conor’s best known painting, the quite remarkable Van Gogh influenced Yellow Landscape of 1892, now in the collection of Tate
Britain.
Dr. Roy Johnston
€ 30,000.00- € 40,000.00 (£22,390-£29,850 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 43IMPORTANT IRISH ART · 25 MAY 2015 AT 6PM