Lot 22 Roderic O'Conor A BRETON SAILOR

Roderic O'Conor, 1860-1840
A BRETON SAILOR
Oil on canvas, 36" x 28 3/4 " (92 x 73cm)

Provenance: Julia Guillou, Htel Julia, Pont-Aven, and descendants, until 1938.

Literature:Lon Tual, Mlle Julia Guillou de Pont-Aven, 1928, p. 33 (repro);Jonathan Benington, Roderic OConor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Dublin 1992, p. 190, no. 12.

This powerful and affecting character study by Roderic OConor was untraced for many years, after being auctioned just before the start of World War Two. Its recent reappearance allows the story of its gestation and first home to be unpicked and the work to be seen in colour for the first time, having previously been known only from an old black-and-white reproduction.

This portrait was made at the beginning of OConors 13-year association with the province of Brittany, shortly after his arrival in the village of Pont-Aven in the winter of 1891. At that moment the avant garde artists colony was taking a break after a frenetic few years under the stewardship of Paul Gauguin, most recently installed at Le Pouldu further down the coast, and now removed to Paris in order to raise funds for his first trip to Tahiti. The only modernist artist of note who was around in Pont-Aven that year was Armand Seguin, with whom OConor would enter into a creative collaboration in 1893, but their acquaintance in 1891 was still only casual in nature.

The village that OConor encountered still had its own busy harbour and could be accessed from the sea a few miles away via the River Aven. The subject of OConors picture is a weather-beaten and souwester-attired Breton fisherman, no doubt from the famous fishing port of Concarneau, just 17 kilometres away and a place he is known to have visited from his base in the village. His interest was probably sparked by his American friend from
Grez-sur-Loing, Francis Brooks Chadwick (1850-1942), who had worked amongst the fishing communities of Concarneau and Newlyn in Cornwall a few years earlier.

OConors connection with Brittany came in the wake of a tidal wave of artists who were discovering the province, drawn by its strong sense of a country apart, with its own distinct language, regional dress, religious customs and a native people who worked both the land and the sea, whatever the prevailing conditions and weather. The fascination of Gauguin and his disciples for the Breton fishing communities was inspired not only by the activities of the busy ports, but also by the romancing of this arduous way of life by writers such as Pierre Loti, whose novel Iceland Fisherman published in 1886 quickly found an honoured place on their bookshelves.

Against this background, it should be noted that unlike many of his contemporaries, OConor was not interested in depicting the Breton fishermen at work, hauling in their nets or unloading their catches. Instead, as a newcomer to the province, he quickly spotted the potential of the marins to sit for portraits that would express in their features and demeanour something of the hard way of life to which they were uniquely attuned. Indeed the elderly sailor who sat for the present work, with his heavily creased brow, pursed lips and direct gaze, fascinated OConor so much that he portrayed him on five separate occasions, acquiring a familiarity greater than that of any of his other models. The largest of these portraits, the present work, hung for many years in the Grand Salon of the Htel Julia in Pont-Aven, having been presented by the artist to the hotels owner, Julia Guillou (1848-1927), known locally as the good hostess on account of her many kindnesses to artists.[1] The painting remained on public display in the hotel until Guillous death in 1927, only to be be auctioned by her heirs eleven years later. It is the only version where the model is frontally posed and looks directly out of the picture at the viewer. Two smaller versions are head-and-shoulders studies, one facing half right, the other half left. In another larger version, titled The Cider Drinker, the model is seated at a table with a cider bottle next to him (Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane). The same bottle reappears in the still life, Flowers, bottle and two jugs (lot 20), which is a slightly later painting probably executed in the spring of 1892, and showing a stylistic shift in that the forms are modelled using colour rather than tone.

The fisherman portraits speak of a certain fascination on the part of OConor. As a well-educated gentleman, sustained by a parental allowance of 250 Francs a month, he was yet able to harbour a very real empathy and respect for this humble Breton fisherman, whose life of hardship almost seems etched into his face. The many sittings that must have been necessary for the series of pictures, when translated into modelling fees, would have been a welcome source of additional income to the middle aged man during the harsh winter months, when few boats would have been able to go out.

Oilskins aside, the features and demeanour of this marin have a timeless quality, conjuring up allusions to Baroque portraits of the saints and apostles by artists such as Ribera and Zurbaran. The pyramidal composition and strong light-dark contrasts in OConors picture, achieved by means of a heavy build-up of paint and texturing using a palette knfe, convey a strong sense of forms in the round, further evoking the work of the old masters. OConor would have come across such paintings in the museum collections of London, Paris and Antwerp, which he knew intimately. Aged just 30 or 31, it is worth remembering that at this point in his career he was a classically trained artist who had only recently completed his studies, fully aware that the route to artistic success lay via the Paris Salon, which would only accept paintings that demonstrated an awareness of the great artists of the past. When he embarked on this group of portraits he must have considered that they would lead to a Salon submission, however no evidence has been uncovered to indicate that this was attempted or realised.

OConors respect for traditional values in art, so evident here, would never leave him. The art critic Clive Bell wrote of his admiration for El Greco and Ingres, and on 30th December 1909 he was the recipient of the following tirade from his Irish friend:I am tired of the modern critics and their new fangled jargon - their learned brushwork their sustained values their scholarly realizations - I'd as soon listen to the old blokes with their mouthes full of chiaroscuro, morbidezza, corregiosity and gusto. They distracted you from their ignorance with the roll of their vocabulary and lulled you to sleep to the sound of muffled drums.

It could be argued that, on one level, OConors series of sailor paintings constitute an extended essay on the deployment of chiaroscuro in representations of the fully clothed male model. On a more human level, however, through their unflinching honesty, they express the hardships of a generally unsung profession, born here with both stoicism and dignity.

Jonathan Benington, 26 February 2024

[1] In Dorothy Menpes book, Brittany, published in 1905, the author described Julia as follows: Originally a peasant girl, she had by untiring energy become the properietess of the great establishment. Her fame as hostess and manager was bruited all over France. Everyone seemed to know of Julia, and year after year artists and their families came back regularly to stay with her. Her salle manger and grand salon were panelled with pictures, some of which are very valuable to-day.