Roderic O'Conor 1860-1940

Given by the artist to his friend Francis-Brook Chadwick at Grez-sur-Loing, and thence by descent to his grand-daughter, Madame Corinne Colomb
Private collection, Northern Ireland, since November 1983

London, Barbican Art Gallery, Roderic O'Conor, 1860-1940, 1985, no. 3, illustrated (as Groupe de Peupliers, Effet de Soleil);
Dublin, Hugh Lane Gallery, Frank O’Meara and his Contemporaries, 1989, no. 22, illustrated;
Dublin, Hugh Lane Gallery, The O'Conor Room, loan exhibit, 1995-2000.

May Brawley Hill, ‘Grez-sur-Loing as an Artists’ Colony’, unpublished paper, City University of New York, 1983, page 18;
Jonathan Benington, ‘From Realism to Expressionism, the Early Career of Roderic O'Conor’, Apollo, April 1985, pp.253 and 255, illustrated;
Jonathan Benington, Roderic O'Conor, A Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1992, pp.27-28, 34 and 189, no. 4, illustrated in colour;
Roy Johnston, Roderic O’Conor / Vision and Expression, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1996, pp.22-23, illustrated.

Very little is known about Roderic O’Conor’s earliest years in France; even the date of his arrival from Ireland remains uncertain. It is largely on the evidence of the date born by this picture that he is assumed not to have reached Paris until 1886. However, such a chronology presupposes that O’Conor thoroughly immersed himself in Impressionist practice within months of setting foot on French soil. Whilst not impossible, such a rapid assimilation of modernist methods seems unlikely. A much more probable scenario is that he made an initial visit (or visits) to the French capital before, during or immediately after the year he spent at the Académie Royale in Antwerp, 1883-84.

While we cannot be sure where Groupe de Peupliers was painted, we can say that it belongs stylistically and thematically with the group of Impressionist canvases that O’Conor produced in the late 1880s in the vicinity of Grez-sur-Loing. Intense sunshine, brilliant colours and thickly applied paint are common to all these works. What raises Groupe de Peupliers above the rest, however, is the date, 1886, which we have every reason to believe is correct, meaning that this extraordinary painting ranks among the very first truly Impressionist works by any English-speaking artist (only John Singer Sargent’s Broadway canvases of 1885 seem to provide any real competition).

At Grez, O’Conor is reported to have been "considered by all the one genius of the crowd." He is credited with introducing Impressionism to the artists’ colony, an achievement that makes perfect sense when one compares the brilliant unmixed colours and impasto brushwork of Groupe de Peupliers with the technique employed by the American Impressionists, Robert Vonnoh and Edward Potthast, whilst at Grez.

The stylistic relationship of Groupe de Peupliers with O’Conor’s Grez works is reinforced by the picture’s interesting provenance, for it belonged to a distinguished local family for nearly a hundred years. It was, in fact, one of a group of four works by O’Conor that belonged to one his closest friends, Francis-Brook Chadwick (born Boston 1850), a wealthy American artist. Chadwick made his way to Grez via St Ives, Concarneau and Pont-Aven. By the late 1880s he and his family had become semi-permanent residents of Grez-sur-Loing, living near the church in a large house owned by the eccentric Marquis de Cazeaux, where the Deliuses later lived. The Chadwicks were to remain faithful to Grez even after its popularity with artists waned, moving as they did into the Hotel Laurent in Grez (where O’Conor formerly stayed) and saving it from dereliction.

In 1882 Chadwick married Emma Löwstadt, a painter from Stockholm and sister of O’Conor’s future fiancée, Eva Mathilde Löwstadt. Although the Irishman’s liaison with Eva was broken off in 1893, O’Conor did not let this get in the way of his friendship with the Chadwicks and was clearly held in high esteem by three generations of the family, notwithstanding the enormous disruptions caused by two world wars. They kept Groupe de Peupliers in their possession until 1983, when it was sold to the present owner.

Jonathan Benington, 2004. Please note further information on this lot is available on request.