Roderic O'Conor 1860-1940

The Artist's Studio
Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Vente O’Conor, 7th February 1956
Private collection, Northern Ireland, since February 1982

Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940, 1984, no. 56, illustrated;
London, Barbican Art Gallery, and toured to Belfast, Ulster Museum, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland and Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, Roderic O'Conor, 1860-1940, 1985, no.128, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

Jonathan Benington, Roderic O'Conor, A Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1992, p.229, no.336, illustrated.

Very few ink and wash landscape drawings survive by O’Conor. It was a technique he reserved exclusively for early Breton period drawings, inspired perhaps by fellow members of the Pont-Aven School such as Sérusier and Seguin, who also favoured it. Clearly O’Conor felt very much at home with ink and wash, for it allowed him the same freedom of line that he practiced in his etchings of this period, especially those such as Le Verger of 1893 which featured storm-tossed trees. The ultimate point of departure for O’Conor in making such expressive use of line was Van Gogh, whose achievements the Irishman was one of the first to appreciate.

In Road with Trees the calligraphy of O’Conor’s whipped lines, particularly in the outer branches of the trees, is the manifestation of an expressive urgency so intense that it has impelled him to take liberties with the forms of nature. We may assume that the leaves of these trees are being tossed by a strong wind, for a great sense of movement is conveyed by the jagged outlines of the four trees, which merge into one amorphous shape. The plunging perspective of the road reinforces the impression of dynamic movement across and through the image.

Other ink and wash drawings by O’Conor are in the collections of Bristol Art Gallery, the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, and the National Museum, Stockholm. Compared to these works, Road with Trees ranks as a superlatively spontaneous and impassioned statement, and one which no doubt owes its raw vigour to having been executed rapidly on the spot. The open countryside depicted in the drawing is consistent with that found in the vicinity of Le Pouldu, where O’Conor was based for much of the year 1893.

Jonathan Benington, 2004