Lot 89: - Andrew O'Connor , American 1874-1941 Recueillement (contemplation) bronze, dark brown patina on composite marble socle

signed and dated: THIS RECUEILLEMENT WAS MADE BY O'CONNOR 1905 and inscribed: ALEXIS. RUDIER. FONDEUR.PARIS bronze, dark brown patina on composite marble socle

measurements note overall: 53.5cm., 21in.

The American sculptor Andrew O'Connor oeuvre evolved over his long career to reflect the many influences of extensive travel and encounters with some of the greatest artists of the age. He began his studies in his native America with apprenticeships to William Ordway Partridge and Daniel Chester French. In their workshops he learnt the patriotic visual vocabulary of America's heroes, before setting sail for Europe. One of his first European influences was the painter John Singer Sargent, whose works O'Connor saw during a stay in England between 1894 and 1897. O'Connor began to transcribe Singer Sargeant's interest in rhythm and light into the medium of sculpture.

The present bronze also reveals the effects O'Connor's decade-long Parisian sojourn after the turn of the century, as he responded to the work of Auguste Rodin. It is a motif reworked from a full-size figure of the same title, which O'Connor presented at the 1907 Salon. Rather than reducing his Salon exhibit in size, O'Connor, following in Rodin's footsteps, isolated its most evocative part. The face retains something of the monumentality of the figure as it evokes a solemn, mediative mood.