IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 28 September 2026

28 18 Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940) THE ORCHARD, c.1934-5 oil on board stamped Atelier O’Conor and inscribed with title on Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London label on reverse 15 by 18in. (38.1 by 45.7cm) Frame Size: 21.75 by 24.75in. (55.2 by 62.9cm) Provenance: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Vente O’Conor, 7 February 1956; Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London; Christie’s, London, 18 November 1977, no. 204; Private collection Sotheby’s, London, 15 May 1985, no. 79; Private collection Exhibited: ‘Two masters of colour: Matthew Smith and Roderic O’Conor’, Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London, 1956, catalogue no. 30; ’Roderic O’Conor, a Selection of his Best Works in Ireland’, Godolphin Art Gallery, Dublin 1978, catalogue no. 23 Literature: Jonathan Benington, Roderic O’Conor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1992, page 226, catalogue no. 305 That this work was one of twenty-three by O’Conor included in his joint exhibition with Matthew Smith in London in April 1956 was a tribute to its quality, given that the show was a first for the artist and marked the beginning of his rediscovery. The story of its making, however, was not without its ups and downs. O’Conor had found new inspiration when he and his young wife stayed at Torremolinos in Spain during 1934-35. At this location, working outdoors in oils on board, he executed at least a handful of landscapes - sun-filled paintings that recaptured his old verve and confidence. Aged seventy-four as against Renée’s forty years, his return to the genre was doubtless the outcome of her persuasiveness and devotion, in the knowledge that the activity of translating his sensations of nature into paint would give him pleasure and satisfaction. Radiant in colour and warmth of feeling, these pictures recalled the work of Pierre Bonnard, one of O’Conor’s favourite painters. The present example, quite possibly featuring gnarled olive rather than fruit trees, would have been painted close to where the same-size picture titled simply Torremolinos was executed. Since 2018, the latter work has belonged to the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame near South Bend, Indiana, as part of a gift featuring works by other Irish artists including Walter Osborne, Jack Yeats and Mary Swanzy. In 1935 Torremolinos was a quiet, unassuming fishing and rural village with just a few thousand inhabitants, administratively part of Malaga rather than an independent community. With its white-washed houses, traditional flour mills and dirt tracks, it was a long way from its later transformation into a bustling Costa del Sol resort. The one exception to this ‘old world’ feeling was the new Railway Orphans School, built in 1935 to the plans of Francisco Alfonso Martos. This Art Deco building with smooth, whitewashed walls and large windows housed a progressive educational institution. It has since been repurposed as the Centro Cultural Pablo Ruiz Picasso. Roderic and Renée would no doubt have noticed the builders at work on this site. O’Conor’s sister Lillie saw him for the last time in May 1935 at Torremolinos, when she met Renée and discovered that they were married (since October 1933). They were intoxicated by the Mediterranean climate and would doubtless have stayed longer but for the growing social and political turmoil in Spain. This led, a year later, to the Spanish Civil War, forcing them to flee the country. That they did so in a hurry is clear from the fact that they left twenty-three thousand Pesetas behind in a bank in Malaga (the equivalent of €68,000 today). The money was never recovered. Although in later life they continued to travel south to picturesque spots such as Cagnes, where Renée owned a villa, these trips seem to have been artistically unfruitful. As far as we know, O’Conor was too frail to undertake any painting in the last five years of his life. Jonathan Benington, August 2026 €60,000-€80,000 (£51,280-£68,380 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot18