Still Life With Lemon And Pomegranates - Atelier O'conor

Gouache on paper, unsigned, but marked on the back "Atelier O'Conor".
Dimensions without frame 25 x 33 cm, with frame 45 x 54 cm.

Roderick O'Conor (1860-1940) was an Irish painter and printmaker who was part of the famous Pont-Aven School. Most of his career was spent in Belgium and France: after attending the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the schools of the Royal Hibernian Academy, he first went to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, then attended the studio of Charles Carolus-Duran in Paris. Experimenting with the techniques of Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Pointillism, O'Conor stayed in the artists' colonies of Grez-sur-Loing and Pont-Aven. It was in the latter that the artist came into contact with the circle of Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903). The two artists met for the first time in 1894 and became friends. O'Conor exhibited with Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Sérusier, and other leading artists at the Exhibition of Impressionist and Symbolist Painters in the 1890s. From 1903 onward, O'Conor's subjects moved away from the depiction of Breton life to nudes, female figures, portraits, and still lifes. He immersed himself in Parisian cultural life, particularly with an exclusive group of British expatriates that included Clive Bell, Arnold Bennett, and Somerset Maugham. In 1933, O'Conor married his partner Henrietta (Renée) Honta, who often posed for the artist. The couple lived in France and Spain, and the artist died at their home in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1940.