Peasant Woman Seated Outdoors – Roderic O'Conor

Brittany, circa 1897. A solitary Breton woman sits outdoors, her face turned down and half-lost in shadow, sunlight catching only the white of her bodice and the edge of her cap.

Between 1892 and 1904, while based in Brittany, O'Conor returned repeatedly to this subject: a single Breton woman seated alone, rather than the groups of working or socialising figures more typical of Pont-Aven School painting. Placing one large figure at the centre of a composition raised a problem Gauguin's circle took seriously — how to avoid painting a portrait, an individual, and instead paint a type. O'Conor's solution here was backlighting: with the sun behind her, most of the figure falls into shadow, her features blurred into anonymity, while bands of alizarin crimson, emerald green and ochre carry the rest of the picture. The effect recalls Gauguin's own Tahitian figures — O'Conor owned Gauguin's Te nave nave fenua from 1895 — universalised rather than individualised, close to the viewer yet held at a cultural distance.

The brushwork is deliberately undisguised, loose washes built up with visible, impetuous strokes — a technique art historian Jonathan Benington has argued anticipated the Fauves by more than a decade.

Roderic O'Conor (1860–1940) was born in County Roscommon and became one of the few Irish painters working at the centre of the Pont-Aven school alongside Gauguin. His work hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, the Tate, and major collections worldwide.

Sizes & Format

• 40x50 cm / 16x20″
• Available framed (black, white, wood) or unframed

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