Country lane, Brittany

O'Conor was living in the small town and artists' colony of Rochefort-en-terre, Morbihan, Brittany when this work was created, and it likely depicts a group of its cottages separated by trees and a small walled garden. In 1960 Denys Sutton wrote the first article devoted entirely to O'Conor: 'Some change in his style was, however, apparent in 1897 and in the Village Lane [the present work] (Coll. Schoneman, New York) datable to that year, the handling is exceedingly fluid; he favoured pinks and oranges, which colours frequently appeared in his later works. His use of direct colours, placed unbroken onto the canvas, suggests some affinities between his practice and that of the Fauves' (D. Sutton, op. cit.).

We are very grateful to Jonathan Benington for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.