Roderic O'Conor 1860-1940

Hotel Drouot, Paris, Vente O'Conor, 7 February 1956;
with Thierry, Brest, 3 May 1981, no.215 as Marine-Estuaire en Bretagne;
Crane Kalman, London;
Private collection;
Vente Enghien-les-Bains, 22 April 1982, lot 14, as Le Port de Doelan, whence purchased by the present owner.

Vannes, Musée de Limur, Retrospective - Henry Moret, Emile Jourdan, Roderic O'Conor, Wladyslaw Slewinski, 1966, no.107 as Marine, Bateaux à l'échouage;
Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, Roderic O'Conor, 1860-1940, 1984, no.37 as Le Port de Doelan.

Jonathan Benington, Roderic O'Conor 1860-1940, A Biography with a Catalogue of his works, Dublin, 1992, no.62 as Estuary at low tide with boats run aground.

Executed circa 1898.
This painting of a tidal estuary with boats aground was first exhibited in the Musée de Limur in Vannes in 1966 in an important retrospective exhibition organised by Henri de Parcevaux.  De Parcevaux used the occasion to present a cross section of work by four artists associated with Gauguin and his circle of painters in Brittany defined as the School of Pont-Aven.

De Parcevaux identified three of these artists, Emile Jourdan, Wladyslaw Slewinski and Roderic O'Conor as ‘méconnus’ or unrecognised talents who merited a wider recognition.  He saw an opportunity to show a selection of their pictures along with work by the better known Henry Moret, who exhibited with the Impressionists at the well established Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris.  Marine, Bateaux à l'échouage was one of eight O'Conor paintings included in the Musée de Limur exhibition.

Since that early exhibition, in which O'Conor was incorrectly described as an American of Irish origin, this painting has had several different titles ascribed to it by successive auction houses and owners.  O'Conor kept very poor records of his paintings and only in the case of work designated for a Salon exhibition did he indicate a title, usually on one of the stretcher bars of the painting.

The original title used when the painting was exhibited in 1966, ten years after it was  sold at the dispersal sale of O'Conor's paintings in Paris, is not specific to any location.  There is, however, some justifiction for linking it to the port of Doelan.  This small village on the rugged Brittany coast is about fifteen kilometres to the south east of Pont-Aven and its situation on a narrow cove provides it with a well protected harbour for the fishing boats anchored there.  The cove is fed by two small streams which enter the estuary at its most narrow point to create an intimate mooring, quite different to that of any other port in the area.  The coastline around Doelan provided inspiration for Moret, who was painting in the area as early as 1886 before eventually taking up residence in Doelan in 1896.

The cloudy and overcast sky in this painting is indicative of rough and unpredictable weather.  Although the rather muted colour range here may be unusual in O'Conor's Brittany work, his subject matter was a muddy estuary basin at low tide which did not give him much scope to develop a vibrant palette.  He used the brush as a drawing tool in the manner of van Gogh to explore the rhythms and textures of the mud flats, the seaweed and the rocks.  In keeping with his subject matter O'Conor has painted this view in closely related tones with a rather limited palette.  It is possible that this work may be one of the earliest marine pictures that O'Conor painted during a visit to the Brittany coastline in 1898.  This visit, made at a time when he was living quietly in the rather remote village of Rochefort-en-Terre some 100 kilometres inland, produced many vigorously painted seascapes from viewing positions on the coastal path that links Doelan with the nearby hamlet of le Pouldu.

Roy Johnston Ph.D