Roderic O'Conor 1860-1940

O'Conor painted numerous works during his lifetime in which brilliantly coloured flower arrangements and bouquets were his subject matter.  He also frequently included flowers with other objects in his still life paintings.  In 18 public exhibitions between 1898 and 1926, which included appearances at the Salon des Indépendants, the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Tuileries, he showed a total of 21 paintings in which flowers were the principal subject matter.  In these flower paintings he varied his choice among anemones, dahlias, gladioli, irises, geraniums, poppies, roses of different types, peonies and chrysanthemums. Chrysanthemums seem to have been a favourite of his for they appear in several paintings, not just on canvas in his preferred medium of oil paint, but also on paper using fluidly applied washes of watercolour.  Unfortunately there are no inscriptions on the back of this painting which would link it to a specific exhibition.

A generous flower arrangement of multi-coloured chrysanthemums sits in a rectangular ceramic jardinière with pierced sides in a design which is derived from basket weave.  The group of flowers and its container have been placed to the left of centre on the flat surface of a cupboard in an otherwise uncluttered environment.  The only other object in the painting is a magazine or a folded newspaper which has been strategically placed to the right, at an oblique angle in the composition, to direct our eye towards the bunch of flowers.

In keeping with the neutrality of the surroundings, O'Conor has used his paint sparingly so that the stained ground shows through beneath the freely drawn lines defining the cupboard edge.  From the detail he has put into the flowers it is evident that it was their colour variation and the texture of the petals in the flower heads which absorbed his attention.  He has combined directional brushstrokes with a range of overpainted marks to achieve tonal variety and to maintain a sense of unity throughout the painting of these richly coloured blooms.   O'Conor's technique in this work shows an awareness of Monet’s flower paintings, and his feathery brushwork here also refers to the painting technique of Renoir, an artist whom he admired.  O'Conor  probably met him in Pont-Aven in 1892 or 1893 when Renoir was staying at the Hotel Julia.  The novelist Arnold Bennet, after having dined with the Irish painter early in 1906, recorded in his diary that O'Conor considered that ‘Renoir was a master’ and a letter from Armand Seguin to O'Conor contains this intriguing reference; [Renoir] ‘talked about you in very good terms’. Clearly O'Conor, through his frequent visits to the Paris galleries and his personal contacts, was very well informed about all that was then current in French painting. 

There are reservations about the accuracy of the inscribed date of '96, which if accurate would place O'Conor in Rochefort-en-Terre at a period in his life when he had adopted a rather more academic style in his work than is represented by this Impressionist influenced painting.   The corner detail of the cupboard on which the flowers are placed is similar to a piece of furniture in O'Conor's Paris studio which he occupied after 1904.  With this evidence, and that of his colour range and technique, a date of circa 1905-10 seems more appropriate. He did exhibit a painting under the title Chrysanthèmes in the1905 Salon d'Automne  but there are no inscriptions on this relined painting to link it to this exhibition.

Roy Johnston Ph.D.