Roderic O'Conor

M Zeitline, Paris;
Private collection, Belfast

Paris, Salon d'Automne, 1909, no. 132;
Dublin, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 'Roderic O'Conor Room', 1995-2000

Roy Johnston, Roderic O'Conor Vision and Expression, 1996, pp. 48-49

STRUCTURE The canvas has been relined. There is a craquelure pattern across the surface and a few areas of paint ridging most notably on the larger jug and in the foreground by the bowl; the picture appears to be slightly dirty and may benefit from cleaning. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT Under UV light there appear to be two small areas of retouching near the upper left corner and near the centre of the left edge. FRAME Held in a gilt wood frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This serenely composed still life brings together a homely selection of earthenware pottery, a bowl of fruit and a plain white tablecloth, placed as if they are uncleared remnants from a meal and rendered fully in the round thanks to the side lighting from a large window just out of the picture to the left. Visible in the background is the panelled door that gave access to O'Conor's first floor studio at 102 rue du Cherche-Midi, Montparnasse. The brown vessel with a prominent spout and a handle on its side that is the centrepiece of the painting appears to be a posset pot, designed for serving a hot beverage of milk curdled with ale or wine. O'Conor's interest in idiosyncratic, if not suggestive ceramics was doubtless fuelled by his former friendship with Gauguin. Indeed this pot served as a studio prop on more than once occasion, its bulbous shape forming the compositional apex of a 1923 Still Life with a Bowl of Apples, which O'Conor sold to Somerset Maugham (Jonathan Benington, Roderic O'Conor: a biography with a catalogue of his work, Dublin 1992, cat. no. 236). The small jug and bowl that feature in the 1909 work are almost certainly examples of Quimper faience brought back from Brittany when the Irishman relocated to Paris in 1904.

By creating an atmosphere of unpretentious, everyday domesticity, O'Conor establishes a link with the kitchen still lifes of Chardin and Cézanne. A predilection for Cézannesque structure had been detectable in his work since 1894, only to resurface at regular intervals over the next 25 years. By 1909, having gone through an intimiste phase in which his still lifes comprised thinly painted, soft focus flower-pieces, he was ready to adopt a more measured approach once again. Cézanne, who had died in 1906 and been given a retrospective show of 56 works at the 1907 Salon d'Automne, was very much in vogue with the budding Cubists, who distanced themselves from the chromatic fireworks of Matisse and the Fauves. O'Conor's cool-toned still life has a pyramidal composition that echoes works by Cézanne such as Woman with a Coffee Pot (Musée d'Orsay), in which the subject is similarly lit from the left and placed in front of geometric wood panelling. Indeed, the specific objects O'Conor has selected could almost be seen as an illustration of Cézanne's famous dictum that one should "treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone" (letter to Emile Bernard, 15 April 1904). Here shape, contour and lighting are all; decorative and painterly flourishes have no place in this world of carefully orchestrated harmony.

Sadly the same sense of calm did not extend to the artistic politics of the time, in which O'Conor was involuntarily caught up. Factions were rife, as he found out when he was elected Vice-President of the Salon d'Automne. What looked on paper to be proof of the esteem of his fellow artists, turned out in practice to be "a nasty job and a tiresome [one]. The show is a poor one. Some of the best men have refrained this year. Matisse ... has two still life studies. Morrice, Barne & myself are represented" (O'Conor to Clive Bell, OCCB10, National Gallery of Ireland). One of the six paintings that O'Conor entered into the exhibition, which opened at the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées on 1^st October 1909, was the present work, simply titled 'Nature morte'. It would appear to have been sold from the exhibition, for it does not bear the atelier stamp that was attached in 1956 to all O'Conor's paintings remaining in his studio at the time of his death.

Jonathan Benington