Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940) was an Irish painter who spent most of his career outside his native Ireland. He lived in France for over 50 years and painted his best work during the 1890s in Pont-Aven, Brittany. This unfinished painting shows his working method: the composition sketched in with touches of thin, blue pigment, followed by the establishment of the colour and tone of the main masses. The sky and sea were completed in a direct and vigorous impasto. He preferred pure colour, and frequently contrasted complementary colours, as here with blue and orange.