Fauvist Portrait of Ogden by Henri O'Connor

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Gorgeous fauvist portrait of man, in a vivd and expressive colorful palette, titled "Ogden" by Henri O’Connor (American, b. 1921), … Read more Gorgeous fauvist portrait of man, in a vivd and expressive colorful palette, titled "Ogden" by Henri O’Connor (American, b. 1921), 1996. Signed and dated lower right corner and on verso. Condition: Professionally cleaned and restored three tears and inpainting. Presented in black painted wood frame. Image size: 16"H x 20"W. Framed size: 21.75"H x 17.75"W.

Henri O’Connor, the son of an American father and a French mother was born in 1921 and grew up in Nantes, France. He attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Nantes and in the late 1930s, studied at the Beaux Arts, the Atelier de la Grande Chaumiere and the Academie de l’Arts et Publicite in Paris

“He was basically one degree removed from all of the great masters of the turn of the century,” David Deitch, a freelance art curator in New York, says of O’Connor’s education. “His teachers were associates of Matisse, Derain — all of the big players at the time.” The curator says that the influences of O’Connor’s teachers, which reflect the Fauvist style in vogue at the time, is apparent in his paintings, particularly some of his later work.

O’Connor and his parents and siblings left Europe at the beginning of World War II and moved to the United States, eventually settling in Sacramento, where O’Connor’s father had relatives. O’Connor was offered a job teaching art at the Sacramento Art Center.

In the early 1940s, O’Connor joined the Merchant Marines and served aboard ships that sailed all over the world, including to Egypt, India, Yemen and the Philippines. In 1945, O’Connor was aboard a ship near Okinawa that was attacked by kamikaze pilots. The ship, which was loaded with ammunition, sank. “I went swimming, got picked up by a destroyer,” he says.

By the early 1950s, young families were leaving San Francisco for the Santa Clara Valley, and in 1952, O’Connor’s family moved to Los Gatos. During the ’60s, O’Connor began teaching the first life drawing classes for the adult education programs in the Bay Area. Deitch refers to many of O’Connor’s paintings created “painted sketches,” because they share qualities of both a drawing and a painting.
“He goes back and forth, because for him, it really is the overall design, the pattern, the geometry,” Deitch says.

Over the course of his career, O’Connor says that as an artist, “I learned to see...because I think that’s what distinguishes one artist from another — his particular way of observing and seeing.”

Source: Mercury News March 3, 2009 See less