Roderic O'Conor 1860-1940

Mr and Mrs DeWitt Lacey, California, purchased in Paris, and thence by direct family descent to the present owner

Paris, Salon d’Automne, 1920, no.1659 (Fleurs sur une Chaise was 3^rd of 5 exhibits).

Painted circa 1920, this hitherto undocumented still life by O’Conor was painted at the beginning of a ten-year period in which he exhaustively explored the potential of the studio nature morte. The vast majority of these works exhibit a heavy build-up of pigment resulting from the artist’s expressive use of the palette knife. The technique places these late paintings of O’Conor firmly in the context of the so-called School of Paris, many of whose chief exponents – such as Rouault and Dunoyer de Segonzac – were personally known to O’Conor. It is also worth noting that he owned a painting by Soutine at this time.

Most of O’Conor’s still lifes adhered to the traditional format of placing a range of objects on a tabletop, usually close to a window, and viewing them from a distance of six or more feet. Fleurs sur une Chaise, on the other hand, is one of a very small number of works which departed from this norm, in that the artist chose to position the objects on a chair. The device brought with it a change of perspective. It allowed O’Conor to focus on one main subject, in this case a vase of flowers, without the need to represent the interior space behind and around the chair. He could also exploit the colour harmonies and contrasts brought into play by the juxtaposition of the flowers, the decoration of the vase, and the rich upholstery of the chair.

As part of the process of researching this new discovery minute pigment samples were taken from ten different areas of the painting and scientifically analysed. All the pigments found were consistent with an early twentieth century date. It was also discovered that the set of colours used on this occasion (with the single exception of purple lake) has been found in other works by O’Conor of similar date.

Jonathan Benington, 2004. A further note on provenance: It seems likely although unconfirmed that the present owner's grandparents bought Fleurs sur une Chaise through the 1920 Salon d'Automne in Paris. With another sister who lived in Florence, they were regular visitors to Europe and stayed with the painter Frederick Frieseke's family in France every year during the early 1900s. Frieseke and O'Conor were close friends and owned paintings by each other - O'Conor's Friesekes were disbursed on his death via his studio sale at the Hotel Drouot in 1956. Both artists were exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne in 1920 and this was when Friseke acquired his O'Conor, most probably as straight swap with his friend. It may well have been through Friseke's intervention at this time, and at his suggestion, that Mr and Mrs de Witt Lacey bought their Fleurs sur une Chaise.