Roderic O’Conor (1860–1940) was born on 17 October 1860 in County Roscommon, in the west of Ireland, the son of the High Sheriff of the county and a member of an old Irish family. He studied art in Dublin at the Metropolitan School of Art, then in Antwerp, and finally in Paris in the studio of Carolus-Duran.
In 1889 he painted at the artists’ colony of Grez-sur-Loing, and in the 1890s he worked mostly in Brittany, where he belonged to the Pont-Aven circle. He was close to Paul Gauguin and strongly influenced by van Gogh, and his bold, striped brushwork and strong colour make him one of the most original Post-Impressionists from the British Isles. He was also wealthy enough to buy works by Gauguin, Cézanne and other leading painters.
In 1933 he married the painter Renée Honta and they settled at Nueil-sur-Layon, in the Loire valley, where he died on 18 March 1940.