.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
It is a well documented fact that O'Conor did not like to part with his pictures. Thus the bulk of his output was not dispersed until sixteen years after this death, when the contents of his studio were auctioned in Paris. The present work is a rare exception to that rule as it was a gift made to a fellow painter, very likely within a year or two of its completion. It is also a testimony of the close friendship that developed between the Irishman and Roger Fry, which was founded on the mutual respect each extended to the other as men of learning and informed connoisseurship. One commentator opined that, 'whenever art critics like Roger Fry, Clive Bell, came to Paris their first care was to make a bee-line to O'Conor's studio and learn the latest and most informed art news'.
There can be no doubt that O'Conor was flattered by the attentions of these younger men, both of whom would have been somewhat in awe of a painter who had known Gauguin and been an active player in the Post-Impressionist movement of the 1890s.
Landscape, Cassis stemmed from O'Conor's highly productive 1913 visit to the South of France. It was one of two paintings which he devoted to the subject seen here, a rocky inlet of a type that is typical of the deeply indented coastline in the vicinity of Cassis. The picture's limpid colouring and open network of broken brushstrokes are reminiscent of Bonnard, who was represented in O'Conor's private collection by two oil paintings. The swathe of bright yellow blossom which bisects the composition diagonally acts as a repoussoir, enhancing the aerial perspective of the bay and the distant headland.
Of the four pictures by O'Conor which were acquired by Fry, two were Cassis subjects executed in 1913 (the other was Iris, in the collection of Tate Britain). In a letter dated 9 May 1915, Fry wrote from Paris to Clive Bell: 'I've been seeing a good deal of Barne, Morrice and O'Conor, whom I like quite a lot. They are often talking of you and your ideas. I've bought an O'Conor whose recent work I like a lot'.
The picture Fry refers to was most probably Iris, as the personal dedication on the reverse of Landscape is suggestive of a gift rather than a transaction involving money.
Jonathan Benington
There can be no doubt that O'Conor was flattered by the attentions of these younger men, both of whom would have been somewhat in awe of a painter who had known Gauguin and been an active player in the Post-Impressionist movement of the 1890s.
Landscape, Cassis stemmed from O'Conor's highly productive 1913 visit to the South of France. It was one of two paintings which he devoted to the subject seen here, a rocky inlet of a type that is typical of the deeply indented coastline in the vicinity of Cassis. The picture's limpid colouring and open network of broken brushstrokes are reminiscent of Bonnard, who was represented in O'Conor's private collection by two oil paintings. The swathe of bright yellow blossom which bisects the composition diagonally acts as a repoussoir, enhancing the aerial perspective of the bay and the distant headland.
Of the four pictures by O'Conor which were acquired by Fry, two were Cassis subjects executed in 1913 (the other was Iris, in the collection of Tate Britain). In a letter dated 9 May 1915, Fry wrote from Paris to Clive Bell: 'I've been seeing a good deal of Barne, Morrice and O'Conor, whom I like quite a lot. They are often talking of you and your ideas. I've bought an O'Conor whose recent work I like a lot'.
The picture Fry refers to was most probably Iris, as the personal dedication on the reverse of Landscape is suggestive of a gift rather than a transaction involving money.
Jonathan Benington