Press release 3/4/2018

Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns. Between Paris and Pont-Aven
18 July–28 October 2018
Beit Wing, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

The National Gallery of Ireland is delighted to present a major exhibition of the work of Irish artist Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940) from 18 July to 28 October 2018. This is the first exhibition in over 30 years to explore O’Conor’s work across all media. Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns. Between Paris and Pont-Aven assembles many of the most important 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 nineteenth-century avant garde. The exhibition will also include seminal works by his illustrious contemporaries in Pont-Aven, including Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Maurice Denis, and will cast 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.

The exhibition of over 60 major artworks offers a colourful array of French scenes charting the work of O’Conor and his contemporaries. It will feature Van Gogh’s Champ de blé aux bleuet (Wheatfield with Cornflowers), 1890 (on loan from the Fondation Beyeler, Basel); Roderic O’Conor’s Field of Corn, Pont-Aven, 1892 (on loan from National Museums NI); and Paul Gauguin’s Bowl of Fruit and Tankard before a Window, c.1890 (on loan from The National Gallery, London) for the first time. It also includes significant works by the gifted Swiss artist Cuno Amiet who worked alongside and was influenced by O’Conor.   

The exhibition is arranged by theme: 1880s, New Discoveries and their Impact; 1890–1893, Landscapes by O’Conor, Amiet and Van Gogh; 1893, Breton Peasants and Still Lifes by O’Conor and Amiet; 1894–1899, O’Conor and Gauguin; and 1900 and after, The Legacy of Pont-Aven. The artworks represent a period when O’Conor had already absorbed Impressionism and Pointillism and was seeking new challenges, leading to direct contact with Paul Gauguin and Theo van Gogh, art dealer and brother of Vincent.

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. 

The exhibition highlights O'Conor as a champion of the modern, passing on his innovations to artists with whom he collaborated. When young Swiss painter Cuno Amiet joined the Pont-Aven artists' colony, in May 1892, he was so impressed by O’Conor’s work that he began using stripes in his own paintings. Working together they created a remarkable body of work. Cuno Amiet returned to Switzerland in 1893, but evidence of the influence of O’Conor’s work remained discernible in his paintings beyond the turn of the century. In 1906 Amiet joined the German Expressionist group, Die Brücke. 

O'Conor developed a distinctly personal style with a bold and expressive treatment of line and colour. With his practice of painting in expressive parallel lines (stripes) from 1892, he adapted a feature of Van Gogh’s late landscapes. The exhibition presents an invaluable opportunity to examine the evolution of O’Conor’s style, side-by-side with the artists with whom he connected and collaborated, including Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Armand Seguin, Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, and particularly Cuno Amiet. 

The exhibition is curated by Jonathan Benington, Manager, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and Brendan Rooney, Head Curator, National Gallery of Ireland.  A fully illustrated catalogue, with essays by Jonathan Benington and Brendan Rooney, will accompany the exhibition. 

Tickets
€15 (€10 & €5 concessions available)
Early-bird tickets available from 11 June 2018 \ €10 & €5
Free for Friends of the National Gallery of Ireland and children under 16 years

The curators

Jonathan Benington grew up in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. After his MA dissertation on Roderic O'Conor at the Courtauld Institute of Art, he embarked on a career in museums that took him to Leeds, Glasgow and Cheltenham. He has been manager of Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery since 1996. Specialising in the modern movement, he has added many works to the Victoria Art Gallery’s permanent collection by twentieth-century artists including Paul Klee, Walter Sickert, William Scott, Howard Hodgkin and Grayson Perry. As an author he has published numerous articles and books including Sir Peter Scott at 80 (1989); Roderic O'Conor, a biography with a catalogue of his work (1992); Sophie Ryder (2001); and Kingerlee (2006).

Dr Brendan Rooney is Head Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland, with particular responsibility for the Irish collection. His publications include The Life and Work of Harry Jones Thaddeus (Four Courts Press, 2003); Thomas Roberts 1748–1777. Landscape and Patronage in eighteenth-century Ireland (with William Laffan, Churchill House Press, 2009); and articles in a variety of books and periodicals on eighteenth- to twentieth-century Irish art. He was editor of Creating History. Stories of Ireland in Art (Irish Academic Press, 2016), and curator of the accompanying exhibition. He is currently preparing (with William Laffan) a monograph on Nathaniel Hone the Elder. 

Press contacts 

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