Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 30th April 2018 at 6pm

46 Roderic O’Conor ( - ) figures in A pool (1898-1900) stamped verso: ‘atelier / O’CONOR’ oil on board 31.25 x 40.5cm (12.30 x 16in) Provenance: Hotel Drouot, Paris, Vente O’Conor, 7th February 1956; Collection of Dr Henry M.Roland; Collection of Sean O’Criadain; Private Collection Exhibited: Manchester and Leeds, City Art Galleries, Modern Works from the collection of Dr Henry M.Roland, 1962, no.88; Pont-Aven. Musee de Pont-Aven, Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940), 1984, no.21; London, Barbican Art Gallery, Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940), September - November 1985, no.28: this exhibition travelled to Belfast, Ulster Museum, November 1985 - January 1986; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, January - March 1986; Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, March - May 1986. Literature: J.Benington, ‘From Realism to Expressionism: The Early Career of Roderic O’Conor’, Apollo, April 1985, pp. 257,260; J.Benington, Roderic O’Conor: A Biography, with a Catalogue of his Work, Blackrock, 1992, pp. 83,200, no.89, pl.30. €60,000-90,000 (£52,173-78,260) O’Conor is well known for the many studio nudes he painted after he settled in Paris in 1904. However, his first nude composi- tions were scenes of female bathers that he executed in Brittany during the late 1890s, inspired in part by the region’s growing popularity with seaside holiday-makers and, on a more personal level, by a life-changing encounter with Paul Gauguin. Figures in a Pool is one of only four oil paintings of bathers to survive from O’Conor’s hand. Collectively they count amongst his most sensual, personal and boldly executed works. Prior to meeting Gauguin in April 1894, O’Conor had always relied on having a motif in front of him when embarking on a painting. It is highly likely that Gauguin exhorted his Irish friend to rely less on nature and draw more from his memory and imagination, echoing the master-pupil exchange played out in Arles six years earlier with Van Gogh. Gauguin’s final departure for the South Seas in 1895 brought the friendship with the Irishman to an abrupt close, although one eye-witness later recalled being given a letter addressed to O’Conor by Gauguin that was “too scatological for publication - details of the ideal position in sexual intercourse - and I lost the letter when the Germans pillaged my house” (Alden Brooks to Denys Sutton, 12 July 1956, Tate Archive). The same eye-witness further reported that O’Conor “went from mistress to mistress” after an engagement was abruptly broken off, implying that he and Gauguin were on the same wavelength not just artistically, but also in their relationships with women. With Gauguin’s example in mind, especially works such as Woman in the waves of 1889 (Cleveland Museum of Art), O’Conor developed a series of paintings that drew extensively from his imagination and appeared to be of symbolist intent. In some the subjects and meanings are allusive, as confirmed by the titles subsequently given to them by later owners, for example The Good Samaritan and Romeo and Juliet, which along with the present work and a later bathers picture are the only oil paintings by O’Conor that combine more than one figure. However, none of these other compositions have the exuberance and spontaneity of Figures in a Pool, in which a nude female bather with long red hair bursts from the water supporting another bather in her arms. The subject is immersed in bright sunlight that glances off the limbs, shoulder and face of the figure held high, relegating the torso and face of her companion to the shadows. Although the facial features are blurred due to the artist’s heavy build-up of paint, we see enough to know that both women are looking towards the viewer, as if surprised at being discovered in this unselfconscious act of playful intent. In this work O’Conor has boldly combined the complementary colours orange and green so as to achieve maximum visual impact. The technique was known at the time as simultaneous contrast; it involved placing complementary hues side by side so that they reinforced each other. O’Conor would have noticed how Van Gogh set great store in this phenomenon, although it was not a method of which Gauguin approved. The hint of striping that can be seen in the ripples of the water and in the green garment abandoned on the far bank of the pool are further reminders of Van Gogh’s legacy. These links with major Post-Impressionist artists demonstrate O’Conor’s enlightened connoisseurship, forged not through the recommendations of others, but rather through his own personal connections - themes that will be fully explored in the forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland: Between Paris and Pont-Aven, Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns (18 July to 28 October). Jonathan Benington, March 2018.