Reference: see Deutscher and Hackett, Important Australian Fine Art + International Art
MELBOURNE, 27 November 2019:
lots 35 - 41 including:
35
KATE O'CONNOR
(1876 – 1968, New Zealand/Australian)
THE ALGERIAN HAT, c.1949 – 51
oil on board
99.0 x 72.5 cm
signed lower left: KL O’CONNOR
PROVENANCE
Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide
Private collection
Sotheby’s, Perth, 17 September 1990, lot 60 (as ’Algernon’s Hat’)
Private collection, Melbourne
EXHIBITED
Exhibition of Paintings by Kathleen O’Connor, Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide, 28 April – 11 May 1965, cat. 20
Kate O’Connor, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne, November 1966, cat. 22
Kathleen O’Connor retrospective: Chasing Shadows, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 4 July – 29 September 1996 (label attached verso)
LITERATURE
Harris, M., ‘Kate O’Connor’, Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 3, no. 4, March 1966, p. 268 (illus.)
Gooding, J., Chasing Shadows: The Art of Kathleen O’Connor, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, p. 65
Curtin, A., Kathleen O’Connor of Paris, Fremantle Press, Perth, 2018, pp. 210 – 11
RELATED WORKS
Australian Riches, c.1950, oil and charcoal on canvas, 87.7 x 69.2 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
CATALOGUE TEXT
In the 1920s, a number of Australian artists, including Roy de Maistre, Adrian Feint and Margaret Preston, applied their talents to domestic design in the fields of textiles, ceramics and interiors. Kathleen O’Connor did likewise when she lived in Sydney in 1927, working for the Grace Bros. and David Jones department stores. She had commenced these activities in the early 1920s and following some years painting velvets for leading fashion houses, her ‘next activity was painting Algerian hats of native fibre, bent into every shape, and worn by the smart set at Deauville, Biarritz and even Paris’.1 It is one of these exaggeratedly tall hats which lies on its side forming the arresting backdrop in The Algerian Hat, c.1949 – 51. Its strong bands of colour suggest that this may be one of the examples hand-painted by O’Connor.
The traditional patterns of northern African textiles had featured earlier in the artist’s oeuvre in striking works such as Flowers and Oriental Carpet (Algeria), c.1928 – 29 and Colour Rhythm, c.1928 (both Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth [AGWA]). This interest had its roots in the 1925 Internationale des Arts Décoratifs Exhibition in Paris, after which ‘designers adapted the traditional geometric patterns and bold colours of North African rugs into original designs that harmonised with the clean lines of the new furniture and interior designs trends’.2 Although painted in Australia some twenty years later, The Algerian Hat indicates the strong attraction that these crafted objects retained for O’Connor as she arranged her intricate still lifes.
In December 1949, she took a studio in Fremantle and two significant paintings soon followed, The Algerian Hat, and its near-twin companion Australian Riches, c.1949 – 51 (AGWA). As O’Connor’s biographer Patrick Hutchings observed, in contrast to the softer European light of her French still lifes, these new works presented ‘a new palette and a new manner for the clear, unfiltered, often hard light of Western Australia’.3 Within a cluttered arrangement of objects – apples, cups, flowers, a cowrie shell, jug and woven hat – O’Connor explores the possibilities of modernism, particularly as presented by Paul Cézanne There are small shifts in tone and technique between Australian Riches and The Algerian Hat, and both works radiate with optimism and vitality. They are also painted with consummate skill and attention, evidence of an artist at her peak, having already exhibited successfully in London and France for the greater part of four decades.
1. ‘Miss O’Connor Interviewed in Sydney’, Daily News, Perth, 11 May 1927, p. 9
2. Gooding, J., Chasing Shadows: the art of Kathleen O’Connor, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, pp. 46 – 47
3. Hutchings, P. A. E., and Lewis, J., Kathleen O’Connor: artist in exile, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Western Australia, 1987, p. 234
ANDREW GAYNOR
36
KATE O'CONNOR
(1876 – 1968, New Zealand/Australian)
A DREAM OF PERSIA, c.1948
oil on wood panel
71.5 x 56.0 cm
signed with initials lower right: KL O’C
signed verso: O’Connor
bears inscription verso: 1613 / 16-6-65 / 5
bears inscription on old label verso: Perth Society of Artists / Kathleen L O’Connor / Perth / 37A Mount St W … / A Dream of Persia / …
signed and inscribed on old label verso: Kathleen L O’Connor / ‘a Persian inspired / … Society of / Artists
PROVENANCE
Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide
Private collection
Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in April 1986
EXHIBITED
Exhibition of Paintings by Kathleen O’Connor, Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide, 28 April – 11 May 1965, cat. 5
Possibly: Perth Society of Artists, Skinner Galleries, Perth, June 1965
Australian Art: Colonial to Modern, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 9 – 25 April 1986, cat. 99 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
CATALOGUE TEXT
‘Flowers are not just flowers but exist in a vibrating decorative ambiency (sic). This is the essence of the true impressionist outlook’.1
The rich red background of A Dream of Persia recalls the powerful tempera paintings O’Connor executed in the late 1920s, as does the sharp delineation of the individual objects. There are also echoes of the treatment the artist utilised in The Algerian Hat (lot 35), through the fracturing of the background plane and the potential dissolving of the flowers’ petals. These aspects, combined with the radiant light and the bold, palette knife application of the paint, point to this being executed shorty after her return to Australia in 1948, possibly to make up for the forced destruction of 150 paintings courtesy of the Fremantle Customs officials. The use of the word ‘dream’ in the title also hints at it being a form of memento mori, created in an attempt to capture the memory of happier days in Paris.
When commenting on an earlier still life, In My studio, Paris, c.1935 – 39 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), the critic Robert Hughes observed: ‘When you look at it you see the delectable froth of light breaking up the forms and leaving them still somewhat legible … but what really counts is the exuberant action of the line weaving and flickering through paint strokes of very high-key colour and then anchored by the fat, prosperous curve of the beautifully painted jug. She had a gift for organising image as surface, a fine voyeur-like sort of knitting that few local painters of the time could even approach’.2
1. Elizabeth Young quoted in Harris, M., ‘Kate O’Connor’, Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 3, no. 4, March 1966, p. 272
2. Hughes, R., quoted in ‘The Australian National Gallery Building: the collection’, Art and Australia, The Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 14, nos. 3 & 4, Summer – Autumn, January and April 1977, p. 263
ANDREW GAYNOR
37
KATE O'CONNOR
(1876 – 1968, New Zealand/Australian)
AN IMPRESSION OF A TABLE IN MY HOME IN NICE, 1947
oil on board
61.5 x 50.0 cm
signed lower right: KL O’Connor
signed, dated and inscribed verso: O’Connor / O’Connor / Nice / 1947
signed and inscribed with title on old label attached verso: Impression / of a table in my home / in Nice - / KL O’Connor
PROVENANCE
Sir Arthur and Lady Rymill, Adelaide (label attached verso)
Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne (label attached verso)
Private collection, Melbourne
CATALOGUE TEXT
For much of the 1930s, Kathleen O’Connor travelled extensively through France as the paid companion to the wealthy widow, Harriet Stewart Dawson, whom she had first met on board ship when returning to Australia in 1926.1 Dawson often stayed at her villa in Monaco which gave O’Connor the opportunity to explore much of the nearby coastline, including the resort town of Nice, travelling in, she claimed, her employers’ luxurious Rolls Royce.2 The light in this stretch of the Riviera is renowned and had already been a direct stimulus to the work of artists such as Matisse. For O’Connor, it was no different, forming a possible link in her memory to the equally strong sun of Western Australia.
On her return to Paris following the Second World War, O’Connor had four works selected for inclusion in the exhibition Artistes Britanniques sur la Côte d’Azur to be held at the Musée Masséna in Nice in late 1947. When revisiting the city, she decided to stay and began ‘a sojourn of almost a year at the Hotel St Louis’.3 Her biographer Amanda Curtin has observed, ‘there is no evidence of Kate securing studio space in Nice but she did manage to paint. Works from this period include Pink glass – Nice (last identified in family holdings), Ensemble, Nice (private collection) and two portraits’.4 Patrick Hutchings identifies the pink bottle in An Impression of a Table in my Home, Nice as forming part of the collection of objects inherited by the artist’s niece Muriel Dawkins.5 Given O’Connor’s propensity for re-exhibiting old works with new titles in subsequent exhibitions, it is plausible that this painting could be one of the two still lifes identified by Curtin. The inclusion of the exotic location within the revised title may well have been one of her strategies to attract a buyer on her return to Australia. An Impression of a Table in my Home, Nice bears stylistic similarities to Verging on the Abstract, c.1938 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) but presents a richer palette of colours, no doubt reflective of the Riviera’s light.
1. Dawson’s husband was David Stewart Dawson, who founded a successful chain of stores. Following his death in 1932, his widow married a Prince from the Polish royal family in 1938 and sold her villa in Monaco.
2. Patrick Hutchings believes this is an example of O’Connor ‘gilding the lily’ in regard to her biographical details. Having seen photographs of this vehicle, he identifies it instead as a 1930 Vauxhall Grosvenor limousine, a luxurious machine but hardly a Rolls Royce as O’Connor claimed. Conversation with Patrick Hutchings, 20 October 19
3. Curtin, A., Kathleen O’Connor of Paris, Fremantle Press, Western Australia, 2018, p. 194
4. ibid.
5. Conversation with Patrick Hutchings, op. cit.
38
KATE O'CONNOR
(1876 – 1968, New Zealand/Australian)
IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS, c.1913
oil on card
38.0 x 46.0 cm
signed with initials lower right: K L O’C
inscribed verso: O’Connor / O’Connor / 1953 / …24… / Mrs J Lorking (?) / Lis….
bears inscription on old label verso: / Mrs Oliver Williams / 11 Mosman Terrace / Mosman Park / 35625
bears inscription on old label verso: … / Mentone
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Perth
Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in December 1988
EXHIBITED
Australian Art: 1790s – 1970s, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 24 November – 9 December 1988, cat. 27 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
RELATED WORKS
Ladies, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, oil on board, 48.3 x 63.5 cm, Janet Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, illus. in Harris, M., ‘Kate O’Connor’, Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 3, no. 4, March 1966, p. 268
In the Luxembourg Gardens, oil on board, 68.7 x 81.0 cm, Royal Perth Hospital Art Collection, Perth
CATALOGUE TEXT
‘They took two straw-bottomed chairs and sat near the octagonal water which completes with its fountain of Cupids the enchanting artificiality of the Luxembourg. The sun shone more kindly now, and the trees which framed the scene were golden and lovely. A balustrade of stone gracefully enclosed the space, and the flowers, freshly bedded, were very gay … The place was grey and solid. Nurses, some in the white caps of their native province, others with satin streamers of the nounou [nannies], marched sedately two by two, wheeling perambulators and talking’.1
‘(My paintings) were just impressions of people I saw sitting about in the Gardens … sketches of people, nursemaids and babies and all those sorts … I just did them at one sitting’.2
In a 1947 interview with Kathleen O’Connor, the artist reflected that in her early Luxembourg Gardens paintings, she had ‘been more concerned with expression of character and pattern rather than exact representation of human form’.3 She proudly claimed that ‘Paris was my always my objective’,4 but once there, it was inevitable that she felt an acute loneliness. Indeed, her choice of muted colours has been interpreted as a reflection of her own sense of being an outsider, one whose lack of an immediate circle of family and friends left her with little choice but to roam Paris in search of subjects she could anonymously paint. Fortuitously, she found in the Luxembourg Gardens ‘quiet avenues and densely shaded areas … a perfect working environment for artists seeking to make quick sketches of the passing nursemaids, students and elegant promenaders’.5In the Luxembourg Gardens, c.1913, captures five of the Gardens’ elegantly hatted visitors, each seated on the distinctive slatted, folding chairs provided gratis. Amidst the Whistlerian browns and greys, deft flashes of pink and blue animate the feathers in the ladies’ hats, and through these flourishes, link this work to companion paintings such as The Pink Nurse, c.1910 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), and (Seated figure in purple/blue gown and hat), c.1910 – 14 (private collection, Perth),6 both of which feature similar contrasts of unexpected colour.
Paintings from these years are amongst the most sought-after of Kathleen O’Connor’s oeuvre with significant examples residing in the collections of Wesfarmers, Janet Holmes à Court, and the State galleries of New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania.
1. W. Somerset Maugham, The Magician, Heinemann, London, first published 1908, quoted from 1974 edition, p. 2, cited in Gooding, J., Chasing Shadows: the art of Kathleen O’Connor, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, p. 23
2. Kathleen O’Connor, interview with Hazel de Berg, 28 May 1965, cited in Taylor, E., Australian Impressionists in France, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013, p. 113
3. Kathleen O’Connor, quoted in ‘A Painter of the Modern School’, MiLady (magazine), Perth, January 1949, p. 67
4. Gooding, J., op. cit., p. 21
5. ibid.
6. The reverse of (Seated figure in purple gown and hat) also features a view of houses in Bruges.
ANDREW GAYNOR
39
KATE O'CONNOR
(1876 – 1968, New Zealand/Australian)
ARTIST AND EASEL, LUXEMBOURG GARDENS, c.1910 – 14
oil on board
44.5 x 54.5 cm
signed with initials lower right: KL O’C
signed verso: KL O’Connor
signed on partial label verso: … O’Connor
PROVENANCE
Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide
Private collection
Christie’s, Melbourne (as ‘Portrait of the artist at her easel’)
Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in November 1995
EXHIBITED
51e Salon de l’Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, Paris, February 1935 (label attached verso)
Exhibition of Paintings by Kathleen O’Connor, Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide, 28 April – 11 May 1965, cat. 18 (as ‘Artist Sketching, Luxemburg [sic.] Gardens’)
CATALOGUE TEXT
‘Kathleen O’Connor fixes the present almost at the moment of it becoming the past: movement is arrested, as if, by this trick, time might be stopped … The Luxembourg paintings … have a haunting, Proustian quality. They are ‘remembrances of things past’. Even as they were being painted in their own distant world, these paintings were essentially ‘recollections’; emotion caught in instants of tranquility and of insight’.1
Within the extended series of images that Kate O’Connor painted in the Luxembourg Gardens are occasional ‘snapshots’ of fellow artists engaged in similar endeavours, such as Two figures, Luxembourg Gardens, c.1910 – 14 (University of Western Australia, Perth). There is no implied commentary in these works; rather, they represent a simple record of focused observation, indicating that to her at least, artists formed part of the necessary and everyday fabric of life, a view in direct opposition to her former experience within the stifling etiquette of Perth society.
Given that it is painted on board, Artist and Easel, Luxembourg Gardens, would likely have been part of O’Connor’s second sequence of Gardens paintings created immediately after World War One and, through the inclusion of the subject’s own attempts at the easel, provides a distinctive contrast with many of its painterly companions. For the greater part, O’Connor utilised muted tones of beige, caramel and stone, with only occasional, though relatively subdued, flashes of colour. In Artist and easel, Luxembourg Gardens, however, the depicted artist has looked out – not inwards like O’Connor – and the burst of blue sky and verdant greens punctuate the picture plane. It also highlights that O’Connor’s choice of otherwise muted tones was a deliberate tactic, and through this, an inevitable sense of melancholy and wistfulness permeates these views.
1. Hutchings, P. A. E., and Lewis, J., Kathleen O’Connor: artist in exile, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Western Australia, 1987, pp. 207, 211
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