October 17, 1860

Roderic O'Conor (October 17, 1860 to March 18, 1940) was an Irish artist, who worked in  France. The write-up for a recent show summarizes his career. "Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns: Between Paris and Pont-Aven:"

'assembles many ...paintings, drawings and etchings from his critical years in Paris and Brittany (1886- 1904), when he was a leading member of the Pont-Aven school of artists, and places him at the heart of the late 19th-century avant garde. The exhibition also includes seminal works by his illustrious contemporaries in Pont-Aven, including Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Maurice Denis, and casts new light on O’Conor’s connections with Gauguin and Van Gogh.

'Roderic O’Conor was born in Co. Roscommon, but moved to France, working between Paris and rural art colonies such as Grez and Pont-Aven. His cutting edge Post-Impressionist style in the early 1890s was unmatched by any of his English-speaking contemporaries. The exhibition curators have selected some of his very best works from the 1890s - many not previously seen in public – drawn from public and private collections including Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. The exhibition celebrates O'Conor as an artist of international standing, operating on a European stage. The strength of his artistic connections is demonstrated for the first time by placing his work in context, alongside that of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, and Armand Seguin.
....

'O’Conor was among those who appreciated Van Gogh’s talent long before the Dutch artist gained mainstream recognition. New research by exhibition co-curator Jonathan Benington reveals O’Conor’s privileged early access to Van Gogh’s oeuvre at the Parisian flat of his brother Theo in 1890. Vincent died in July of that year, and only two months later, O’Conor attended a memorial exhibition, seeing Van Gogh’s work in quantity for the first time. Responding to Van Gogh’s exaggerated colours and expressive brushwork, O’Conor adapted his style to suit his own vision, painting alternating stripes of pure colour, intended to mix optically, like the dots of the pointillists. Over the next two years O’Conor experimented with ‘the stripe’ and adopted it across all media, including ink drawings and etchings.

'Included in the exhibition is Pierre Girieud's painting Homage to Gauguin, 1906, which features O’Conor as one of Gauguin’s ten most dedicated followers. During Gauguin’s last season in Brittany, he and O’Conor became friends. In May 1894, the pair were involved in a brawl with sailors in Concarneau, in which Gauguin broke his ankle. When Gauguin recovered, O’Conor allowed him to use a studio at the manor of Lezaven, and Gauguin based part of a picture on one of O’Conor’s drawings. Gauguin presented O’Conor with affectionately inscribed prints, and invited him to travel with him to the South Seas. O’Conor declined. O’Conor later began to use paint more fluidly, deploying warm colours reminiscent of Gauguin’s Tahitian landscapes. '

Here we see an example of the stripe mentioned above, and a glimpse of the artist's heart.