Description

Scene in Wicklow ~ James O’Connor.

Scene in Wicklow by James Arthur O’Connor shows two Wicklow landmarks. The Little Sugar Loaf and the Great Sugar Loaf. The two mountains are easily recognizable and the foreground with the bridge and river, animals grazing, and the figures dressed in red clothes give the scene interest.

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James Arthur O’Connor

O’Connor born in Dublin is largely a self-taught artist. He lived from his work and sold many landscapes.

In 1813, he set out with two artist friends George Petrie and Francis Danby to view the 1813 Royal Academy Exhibition in London. Lack of money made their stay a short one. While Petrie returned to Ireland, O’Connor and Danby travelled to Bristol where they arrived penniless. Fortunately, Danby sold some paintings to enable O’Connor to return to Dublin where he settled down as a landscape artist. In 1818 and 1819 he travelled to the West of Ireland where he painted a number of local landscapes.

However, despite a great deal of hard work he struggled to earn a living, in Ireland. Recently married and keen to improve his prospects, he left Dublin in 1822 and went to London. Almost immediately he succeeded in exhibiting at the Royal Academy and sold some works.

In 1826, he went to Brussels for a year and sold quite a number of his pictures. In 1832, he spent eight months in Paris before setting off on a tour of France and Germany. During this time he became friends with the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. and produced some of his finest work. Within a few years, his eyesight began to show signs of weakness and in 1839 his health failed. He died in humble circumstances in Kensington, three years later.

In 1985, the National Gallery of Ireland held a retrospective for O’Connor’s landscapes, which was repeated in 1986 at the Ulster Museum, Belfast.

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