Roderic O'Conor

Studio of the Artist

The Artist's Estate Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Vente O'Conor, 7 February 1956

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, 1958, where acquired by the family of the present owner, and by descent

The model who sat for this picture, with her slender figure and bouffant hairstyle, appears in other pictures by O'Conor dating from his intimiste period, for example Reclining nude (Benington no. 122) in which the young woman's face and neck are similarly thrown into shadow. The picture was painted in O'Conor's Montparnasse studio at 102 rue de Cherche-midi, with the divan placed at right angles to the studio windows so as to create the contrejour effect in the models' head and forearms. The chaise longue, picked out in a plumby tint of red that O'Conor particularly favoured, can be seen in many of his nude compositions. The placement of a vase in the right foreground of the painting allows the curves of the model to be echoed. O'Conor was fond of partnering his figures with paintings, sculptures and ceramics selected from his private collection, thereby endowing these objects with a function beyond the merely aesthetic.

Jonathan Benington