Lot 271: Patrick O'Connor - The Three Graces

Patrick O'Connor
The Three Graces
signed and dated 69
oil on canvas
99 by 121cm

Durban Art Gallery, Andrew Verster and Patrick O'Connor, 1969

Patrick O’Connor, while trained at the University of the Witswatersrand, taught painting at the University of Durban-Westville from 1964, before taking up a senior position at the Natal Technikon in 1971. At both institutions his tenure coincided with that of Andrew Verster. Infamously, O’Connor and Verster staged a two-man exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery in 1969. The current lot was on show, alongside other satirical nudes by Verster. After much controversy, the Gallery’s director ordered the show to be taken down, primarily on the grounds of its ‘offensive’ and so-called pornographic elements. O’Connor emigrated to Ireland in 1977.