Physical description
Oil painting on canvas, depicting the town of Westport and Clew Bay, County Mayo.
Place of Origin
Westport, Ireland (made)
Date
1825 (made)
Artist/maker
O'Connor, James Arthur, born 1792 - died 1841 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
oil on canvas
Marks and inscriptions
'J A O'Connor/1825'
Dimensions
Height: 51.5 cm estimate, Width: 77.1 cm estimate
Object history note
Purchased, 1873
Descriptive line
Oil painting on canvas, depicting the town of Westport and Clew Bay, County Mayo, by James Arthur O'Connor, Ireland, 1825
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 220
The following is the full text of the entry:
"O'CONNOR, James Arthur (?1792-1811)
Born Dublin, Eire, probably in 1792, son and pupil of the printseller and engraver William O'Connor; practised as an engraver, and studied painting with William Sadler. First exhibited Dublin 1809. Visited London with Francis Danby ARA 1813, returning there to live 1822. Exhibited 21 landscapes (several views around Dublin) at the RA between 1822 and 1840, 38 at the BI 1823-39, and 17 at the SBA 1829-1838. Visited Brussels 1826-7, Paris and Germany 1832-3. Health and eyesight declined; died Brompton, London, 7 January 1841; his studio sale was at Christie's 12 February 1842 (Art Union April 1845 made a financial appeal for his widow). Some of his works were exceptionally large; Bodkin proposed that his best paintings were on a smaller scale but seldom exhibited. S Redgrave (A Dictionary of Artists of the English School) in 1878 thought the landscapes 'boldly painted, show great feeling, and are good in tone and colour, but rather green', and Hutchinson in 1985 describes the artist as:
"
Until about ten years ago ... possibly the best loved of all Irish painters. This affection ... was not based on any real knowledge of his paintings, but on an affinity with the lyrical mood of his most common landscapes, which, it was widely believed, always included tiny figures wearing red waistcoats walking down country lanes on fine summer days.
LIT: Gentleman's Magazine March 1841, p329, June 1841, p666 (obit); Dublin Monthly Magazine April 1842; W G Strickland A Dictionary of Irish Artists, Il, 1913, pp179-82 (with engr self-portrait); T Bodkin Four Irish Landscape Painters 1920, pp17-28; James Arthur O'Connor centenary exhibition catalogue, Municipal Gallery of Modem Art, Dublin, 1941; A Crookshank 'Early Landscape Painters in Ireland' Country Life 24 August 1972, pp468-72; A Crookshank and the Knight of Glin The Painters of Ireland 1978, p209; J Hutchinson James Arthur O'Connor NGI, Dublin, 1985
Town of Westport and Clew Bay, County Mayo
30-1873 Negs GB579, GC3827
Canvas, 51.5 X 77.1 cm (20 ¼ X 30 ? ins) Signed and dated 'J A O'Connor/1825' bl Purchased 1873
O'Connor visited the west of Ireland in 1818-9 and painted a series of landscapes commissioned by Lord Sligo at Westport. Hutchinson suggests, however, that the earliest of the Westport views is that signed and dated 1817 (repr p98), a smaller variant of the painting in Westport House (repr p99); the former may have led to the Marquis of Sligo's patronage. A signed pen and ink drawing of the subject in the British Museum is inscribed 'The Marquis of Sligo's house and demesne with the town and bay of West port, Co Mayo'. Another, smaller painting, 'Westport Bay, from the Newport Road, Mayo', the size given in the catalogue, presumably including the frame, as 20 by 24 inches, was exhibited at the BI in 1825 (63).
Hutchinson (p138) notes of the present work
The colouring in the sky of this painting is considerably more dramatic than in the earlier versions of the view, and may owe something to the influence of Turner. There is at least one other view of Clew Bay that was painted some years after the original series at Westport and it has a similarly colourful sky.
EXH: English Romantic Art Arts Council 1947 (64); James Arthur O'Connor NGI, Dublin, 1985, (55)
LIT: J White 'O'Connor at Westport House', Apollo July 1964, pp42-3
Ronald Parkinson"
Materials
Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Landscapes; Mountains; Sun; Westport
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
