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Major Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...
Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in
Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
society, though many of his most striking paintings are self-portraits. During
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, he was the most prolific of the official war artists sent by Britain to the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers * Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...
. There he produced drawings and paintings of ordinary soldiers, dead men, and German prisoners of war, as well as portraits of generals and politicians. Most of these works, 138 in all, he donated to the British government; they are now in the collection of the
Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
. His connections to the senior ranks of the
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...
allowed him to stay in France longer than any of the other official war artists, and although he was made a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
in the
1918 Birthday Honours The 1918 Birthday Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King, 3 June a ...
, and also elected a member of the
Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
, his determination to serve as a war artist cost him both his health and his social standing in Britain. After his early death a number of critics, including other artists, were loudly dismissive of his work, and for many years his paintings were rarely exhibited, a situation that only began to change in the 1980s.


Biography


Early life

Born in
Stillorgan Stillorgan (, also ''Stigh Lorcáin'' and previously ''Tigh Lorcáin'' or ''Teach Lorcáin''), formerly a village in its own right, is now a suburban area of Dublin in Ireland. Stillorgan is located in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, and contains man ...
,
County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...
, William Orpen was the fourth and youngest son of Arthur Herbert Orpen (1830–1926), a solicitor, and his wife, Anne Caulfield (1834–1912), the eldest daughter of the Right Rev. Charles Caulfield (1804–1862), the Bishop of Nassau. Both his parents were amateur painters, and his eldest brother, Richard Caulfield Orpen, became a notable architect. His nieces were Bea Orpen and
Kathleen Delap Kathleen Delap (27 January 1910 – 29 October 2004) was an Irish activist and feminist. Early life Born Kathleen Hilda Orpen on 27 January 1910 to Charles St George Orpen (1864–1939) and Cerise Maria Darley (d.1950) at home in Lisheens, Car ...
. The historian
Goddard Henry Orpen Goddard Henry Orpen (8 May 1852 – 15 May 1932) was an Irish historian. He attended The Abbey School, Tipperary and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin. Orpen was the son of Dr. John Herbert Orpen (1805–1888) and Ellen Susanna Gertude ...
was his
second cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...
. The family lived at 'Oriel', a large house with extensive grounds containing stables and a tennis court. Orpen appears to have had a happy childhood there. Orpen was a naturally talented painter, and six weeks before his thirteenth birthday was enrolled at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. During his six years at the college, he won every major prize there, plus the British Isles gold medal for life drawing, before leaving to study at the
Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
between 1897 and 1899. At the Slade he mastered oil painting and began to experiment with different painting techniques and effects. Orpen would include mirrors in his pictures to create images within images, add false frames and collages around his subjects, and often make pictorial references to works by other artists in his own paintings. His two-metre-wide painting ''The Play Scene from Hamlet'' won the Slade composition prize in 1899. His teachers at the Slade included
Henry Tonks Henry Tonks, FRCS (9 April 1862 – 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist. He became an influential art teacher. He was one of the first British art ...
, Philip Wilson Steer and Frederick Brown, all of whom were members of the
New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...
; they ensured he exhibited there in 1899, and that he became a member in 1900. Orpen's ''The Mirror'', shown at the NEAC in 1900, references both
Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. A ...
's ''
Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It f ...
'' of 1434 and also elements of seventeenth-century Dutch interiors, such as muted tones and deep shadows. Orpen depicted the 'Arnolfini' convex glass in several other paintings, including ''A Mere Fracture'' in 1901, during this period. Also in 1901, he held a solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in central London. Whilst at the Slade, he became engaged to Emily Scobel, a model and the subject of ''The Mirror''. She ended their relationship in 1901, and Orpen married Grace Knewstub, the sister-in-law of Sir
William Rothenstein Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death. Though he c ...
. Orpen and Knewstub had three daughters together, but the marriage was not a happy one; by 1908, Orpen had begun a long-running affair with Mrs Evelyn Saint-George, a well-connected American millionairess based in London, with whom he also had a child.


Early career

After he left the Slade, from 1903 to 1907, Orpen ran a private teaching studio, the Chelsea Art School, at Rossetti Mansions near the
King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...
with his fellow Slade graduate
Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarge ...
. Between 1902 and 1915, Orpen divided his time between London and Dublin. He taught at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, and his teaching influenced a generation of young Irish artists. His pupils included
Seán Keating Seán Keating (born John Keating, 28 September 1889 – 21 December 1977) was an Irish romantic-realist painter who painted some iconic images of the Irish War of Independence and of the early industrialization of Ireland. He spent two week ...
,
Grace Gifford Grace Evelyn Gifford Plunkett (4 March 1888 – 13 December 1955) was an Irish artist and cartoonist who was active in the Republican movement, who married her fiancé Joseph Plunkett in Kilmainham Gaol only a few hours before he was executed ...
,
Patrick Tuohy Patrick Tuohy (27 February 1894 – August 1930) was an Irish portrait, narrative, and genre painter. Early life Patrick Joseph Tuohy was born in Dublin on 27 February 1894, at 77 Lower Dorset Street. His parents were the surgeon, John Jose ...
,
Leo Whelan Leo Whelan RHA (10 January 1892 – 6 November 1956) was an Irish painter. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Born in Dublin and educated at Belvedere College and the Metropolitan ...
and Margaret Clarke. This was the period of the
Celtic revival The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gae ...
in Ireland and, responding to the growth of new literary and other cultural developments, Orpen painted three large allegorical paintings: ''Sowing New Seed'', ''The Western Wedding'' and ''The Holy Well''. A key figure in the Celtic Revival was
Hugh Lane Sir Hugh Percy Lane (9 November 1875 – 7 May 1915) was an Irish art dealer, collector and gallery director. He is best known for establishing Dublin's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (the first known public gallery of modern art in the ...
, who was a friend and mentor to Orpen, and who begin collecting
impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...
art works with Orpen's guidance. In the summer of 1904 Orpen and Lane visited Paris and Madrid together, and some years later Lane commissioned a series of portraits of contemporary Irish figures from Orpen for the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin. From 1908 onwards, Orpen exhibited works in the
Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
on a regular basis. Between 1908 and 1912, Orpen and his family spent the summer on the coast at
Howth Howth ( ; ; non, Hǫfuð) is an affluent peninsular village and outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland. The district as a whole occupies the greater part of the peninsula of Howth Head, which forms the northern boundary of Dublin Bay, and include ...
, north of Dublin, where he began painting in the open air and developed a distinctive ''
plein-air ''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or ''plein air'' painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting ...
'' style that featured figures composed of touches of colour without a drawn outline. The most notable of these works was ''Midday on the Beach'', shown at the NEAC in 1910. Between 1911 and 1913, in London, Orpen painted a series of portraits, mostly three-quarter-length, of Vera Brewster, the wife of the writer Joe Horne. These included the paintings ''The Roscommon Dragoon'', ''The Irish Volunteer'' and ''The Angler''.
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
promoted Orpen's work and he soon built a lucrative reputation, in both London and Dublin, for painting society portraits. ''Mrs St. George'', (1912), and ''Lady Rocksavage'' (1913), both demonstrate Orpen's ability to produce the
swagger portrait Grand Manner refers to an idealized aesthetic style derived from classicism and the art of the High Renaissance. In the eighteenth century, British artists and connoisseurs used the term to describe paintings that incorporated visual metaphors in ...
s that Edwardian high society greatly valued. Group portraits of a type known as conversation pieces were also hugely popular and Orpen painted several, most notably ''The Cafe Royal in London'' (1912), and ''Homage to Manet'' (1909), which showed
Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...
and several other artists and critics seated in front of
Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bor ...
's ''Portrait of Eva Gonzalies''. Orpen had worked on ''Homage to Manet'' since 1906 at his studio in South Bolton Gardens in Chelsea, where Lane also had rooms. By the start of World War I, Orpen was the most famous and most commercially successful artist working in Britain.


World War One

At the start of World War One, a number of Irish people living in England returned to Ireland to avoid conscription. Among them was Orpen's studio assistant and former pupil,
Seán Keating Seán Keating (born John Keating, 28 September 1889 – 21 December 1977) was an Irish romantic-realist painter who painted some iconic images of the Irish War of Independence and of the early industrialization of Ireland. He spent two week ...
. Keating encouraged Orpen to do likewise, but he refused and committed himself to supporting the British war effort. In December 1915 Orpen was commissioned into the Army Service Corps and reported for clerical duty at London's
Kensington Barracks Kensington Barracks was a military installation in Kensington, London. History The original barracks were built in the late 18th century at Kensington Gate to accommodate cavalry regiments. King William IV is known to have ridden past the barr ...
in March 1916. Throughout 1916 Orpen continued painting portraits, most notably one of a despondent
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, but soon started using both his own contacts, and those of Evelyn Saint-George, to secure a war artist posting. Orpen knew both Philip Sassoon, the private secretary to Sir Douglas Haig, and also Sir
John Cowans General Sir John Stephen Cowans, (11 March 1862 – 16 April 1921) was a senior British Army officer who served as Quartermaster-General to the Forces from 1912 to 1919, covering the period of the First World War. Military career Educated ...
, the Quartermaster General of the British Army. In January 1917, the ''
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its Masthead (British publishing), masthead was simpl ...
'' reported that Haig himself had "conferred" on Orpen the title of an official artist with the British Army in France. The Department of Information, who were actually running the British war artist scheme, were given little choice but to accept the situation. While the other artists on the Department scheme remained at the honorary rank of second lieutenant and were restricted to three weeks visiting the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers * Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...
, Orpen was promoted to major and given indefinite permission to remain at the Front. An officer from Kensington Barracks was appointed as his military aide, a car and driver were made available in France and Orpen paid for a batman and assistant to accompany him. In April 1917, Orpen travelled to the
Somme __NOTOC__ Somme or The Somme may refer to: Places *Somme (department), a department of France *Somme, Queensland, Australia *Canal de la Somme, a canal in France *Somme (river), a river in France Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Somme'' (book), a ...
and based himself in
Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...
. Orpen had arrived on the Somme three weeks after the German forces had pulled back to the
Hindenburg Line The Hindenburg Line (German: , Siegfried Position) was a German defensive position built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front during the First World War. The line ran from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. In 1916 ...
. Each day Orpen would be driven to locations such as
Thiepval Thiepval (; pcd, Tièbvo) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Thiepval is located north of Albert at the crossroads of the D73 and D151 and approximately northeast of Amiens. Population First Wo ...
,
Beaumont-Hamel Beaumont-Hamel () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. During the First World War, Beaumont-Hamel was close to the front line, near many attacks, especially during the Battle of the Somme, one of the larg ...
or
Ovillers-la-Boisselle Ovillers-la-Boisselle is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The commune of Ovillers-la-Boisselle is situated northeast of Amiens and extends to the north and south of the D 929 Albert–Bapaume ...
to sketch Allied troops or German prisoners and record the devastation left by the
Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place be ...
amid the frozen and desolate landscape. However he did not submit any work to the Department of Information nor to the military censor. When he was reprimanded for that, he had Haig's office move the officer who had issued the reprimand to other duties. In May 1917, he painted portraits of both Haig and Sir
Hugh Trenchard Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Montague Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, (3 February 1873 – 10 February 1956) was a British officer who was instrumental in establishing the Royal Air Force. He has been described as the "Father of the ...
, the commander of the
Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...
, and both of these images were widely reproduced in British newspapers and magazines. In June Orpen moved to the
Ypres Salient The Ypres Salient around Ypres in Belgium was the scene of several battles and an extremely important part of the Western front during the First World War. Ypres district Ypres lies at the junction of the Ypres–Comines Canal and the Ieperlee. ...
and stayed at Cassel in the Hotel Sauvage, where he painted the self-portrait known as ''Ready to Start''.


The Somme battlefield

Orpen returned to the Somme in August 1917, and found the landscape transformed. Writing in 1921, he described the scene:
"I had left it mud, nothing but water, shell-holes and mud – the most gloomy dreary abomination of desolation the mind could imagine; and now, in the summer of 1917, no words could express the beauty of it. The dreary, dismal mud was baked white and pure – dazzling white. White daisies, red poppies and a blue flower, great masses of them, stretched for miles and miles. The sky a pure dark blue, and the whole air, up to a height of about forty feet, thick with white butterflies: your clothes were covered with butterflies. It was like an enchanted land: but in the place of fairies there were thousands of little white crosses, marked 'Unknown British Soldier', for the most part."
Orpen was well aware that this landscape was a vast graveyard. Throughout the summer of 1917, other than Orpen and his driver and assistant, the only people on the empty battlefield around
Thiepval Thiepval (; pcd, Tièbvo) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Thiepval is located north of Albert at the crossroads of the D73 and D151 and approximately northeast of Amiens. Population First Wo ...
were the British and Allied burial parties working to identify and inter the thousands of bodies left in the open or in abandoned trenches and dugouts. As he travelled across this landscape Orpen frequently encountered dead bodies and human remains, often little more, he wrote, than "skulls, bones, garments". On the Somme, Orpen pushed himself to find artistic and pictorial strategies adequate to the situation. He stopped using half-tones and half-shades and adopted a new palette of colours, characterised by the extensive use of weak purples, mauves and bright green, with large white spaces representing the effect of bright sunlight on the chalk soil, all under a strong cobalt blue sky. In '' Dead Germans in a Trench'' his use of blue-green for the bodies indicates putrefaction, while the bright colouring of the trench increases the disturbing sense of the picture. Amid the derelict trenches, Orpen claimed to have encountered soldiers who had been traumatised and shell-shocked by the fighting and made, at least, two paintings, ''A Man with a Cigarette'' and ''Blown Up, Mad'', based on these meetings. Others regard the two figures as purely allegorical representations of sacrifice and suffering. In particular, the soldier in ''Blown Up, Mad'' has been likened to early Renaissance depictions of the risen Christ emerging from the tomb. Following the success of his Haig and Trenchard portraits, Orpen was asked to paint portraits of several pilots in the
Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...
. He spent part of September 1917 visiting airfields and during October 1917 he was based with No. 56 Squadron near Cassel. His portrait of Lieutenant Reginald Hoidge, MC and Bar, was painted a few hours after the young pilot had been in a dogfight and Orpen was greatly impressed by his calmness. Orpen's portrait of Arthur Rhys-Davids, DSO MC, is also crisply drawn with rich colours and lush shadows. Rhys-Davids was killed in combat within a week of sitting for Orpen, whose portrait of him was used as the cover illustration of the next edition of ''War Pictorial'' magazine and widely reproduced elsewhere after that.


''The Refugee''

Late in 1917, Orpen spent two weeks in hospital with blood poisoning. There he met a young volunteer Red Cross worker from
Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...
named Yvonne Aubicq. The two began a relationship that was to last ten years and Orpen painted several portraits of her. Two of these he submitted to the official censor early in 1918. Orpen named both paintings ''A Spy'' and in March 1918 was interviewed by A. N. Lee the military censor responsible for the war artists. Lee made it clear that if the title was intended as a joke it was in very bad taste coming so soon after the execution of
Mata Hari Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 187615 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. She was executed ...
but if the subject really was a spy then Orpen could be facing a court-martial. Orpen gave Lee a fantastical story that the woman in the picture was a German spy who had been executed by the French but who, in an attempt to save herself, had at the last moment revealed herself naked in front of the firing squad. Lee had Orpen recalled to London to be reprimanded at the
War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
. There, Orpen retracted the firing squad story but was ordered to remain in London. Orpen ignored this and, quite illegally, made his way back to France. There he contrived to receive a phone call from Haig's private office, within earshot of several of Lee's colleagues from Army Intelligence, inviting him to dinner with Haig to discuss what he would like to paint next. Lee dropped his objections to Orpen working in France, and Orpen agreed to rename the two pictures ''The Refugee''. As the war progressed, Orpen and Lee became good friends; Orpen painted two portraits of him, and they went drinking together in London and maintained a lively correspondence until Orpen's death. It is not clear how well known this friendship was during their lives but if it was known of in Dublin it would have caused consternation and real pain in several quarters. Not only had Lee been the
Brigade Major A brigade major was the chief of staff of a brigade in the British Army. They most commonly held the rank of major, although the appointment was also held by captains, and was head of the brigade's "G - Operations and Intelligence" section dire ...
sent to Dublin to put down the 1916
Easter Rising The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with t ...
, but had been the officer in charge of arranging several of the executions that followed the fighting, including that of
Joseph Plunkett Joseph Mary Plunkett ( Irish: ''Seosamh Máire Pluincéid''; 21 November 1887 – 4 May 1916) was an Irish nationalist, republican, poet, journalist, revolutionary and a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising. Joseph Mary Plunkett married Grace Gif ...
, the husband of
Grace Gifford Grace Evelyn Gifford Plunkett (4 March 1888 – 13 December 1955) was an Irish artist and cartoonist who was active in the Republican movement, who married her fiancé Joseph Plunkett in Kilmainham Gaol only a few hours before he was executed ...
, Orpen's star pupil from his teaching days. In fact, between enlisting in the British Army in 1915 and his death in 1931, Orpen spent only a single day, in 1918, in Ireland. In May 2010, a third version of ''The Refugee'' surfaced on the ''
Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...
'' television programme. The
Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
had assured its owner that it was a copy by someone other than Orpen, but the programme's art expert, Rupert Maas, determined it was painted by Orpen himself as a 'thank-you' present to
Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...
for helping him avoid being court-martialled in March 1918. The picture was estimated to be worth £250,000.


Recognition

In May 1918, 125 of Orpen's war paintings and drawings were displayed at Agnew's Gallery in
Old Bond Street Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and th ...
in London. The exhibition was a great success with 9000 paying visitors in its four weeks. Highlights of the exhibition included nine of Orpen's 'khaki portraits' and several of his works from the Somme such as ''Highlander Passing a Grave'' and ''Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt''. There was much press discussion as to why the censor had passed Orpen's ''Dead Germans in a Trench'' as suitable for display, after his refusal to allow Christopher Nevinson's ''
Paths of Glory ''Paths of Glory'' is a 1957 American anti-war film co-written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. Set during World War I, the film stars Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, the commanding officer of ...
'' to be displayed two months previously. In fact Arthur Lee had refused to pass nearly all of the paintings shown at Agnew's but Orpen appealed to the Director of Military Intelligence, General
George Macdonogh Lieutenant-General Sir George Mark Watson Macdonogh (4 March 1865 – 10 July 1942) was a British Army general officer. After early service in the Royal Engineers he became a staff officer prior to the outbreak of the First World War. His main r ...
, and had him overruled. After Agnew's, several museums and galleries wanted to host the exhibition and it was taken to the
Manchester City Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three ...
and then the United States. Whilst the exhibition was in London, it was announced that Orpen was donating all the works on display to the British government on the understanding that they should remain in their white frames and be kept together as a single body of work. They are now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London. In the King's
1918 Birthday Honours The 1918 Birthday Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King, 3 June a ...
list that summer he was made a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
.


1918

Orpen returned to France in July and spent a second summer painting on the old Somme battlefield and making frequent trips to Paris to complete a series of portraits of Canadian commanders. Later he painted the immediate aftermath of the fighting at
Zonnebeke Zonnebeke (; vls, Zunnebeke) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the villages of , , Passendale, Zandvoorde and Zonnebeke proper. On January 1, 2006, Zonnebeke had a total population ...
that had taken place during the
Fifth Battle of Ypres The Fifth Battle of Ypres, also called the Advance in Flanders and the Battle of the Peaks of Flanders (french: Bataille des Crêtes de Flandres) is an informal name used to identify a series of World War I battles in northern France and sout ...
. Orpen made it clear he wished to remain in France and was keen to work in the newly liberated towns. By the end of the summer of 1918, Orpen was mentally exhausted and his works became increasingly theatrical, less realistic and more allegorical. In ''Harvest'' (1918), which shows women tending a grave covered in barbed wire, he used a garish palette of colours to emphasize the unreal nature of the scene. While ''Bombing: Night'' and ''Adam and Eve at Peronne'' seem somewhat flawed compositions, other paintings were far more successful. Most notably, ''The Mad Woman of Douai'' is a harrowing depiction of the aftermath of a rape. When Orpen met the woman some time afterwards she was 'silent and motionless, except for one thumb which constantly twitched'. The two soldiers in the picture are both figures borrowed from other paintings of his, as is the grave in the foreground. Orpen had been shocked to see a number of such burial mounds with, as he wrote, "''arms and feet showing in lots of cases''". As the war entered its final stages Orpen witnessed scenes which he found increasingly macabre. One day, even the broad-minded Orpen was shocked to encounter three young French prostitutes offering their services next to a burial party at a gravesite. Towards the end of the war, he painted a handful of 'parable paintings', such as ''Armistice Night, Amiens'' and ''The Official Entry of the Kaiser'', that used black humour to re-imagine the coming victory. Most of these paintings were never displayed in public after the war. In November 1918, Orpen collapsed and became seriously ill. Yvonne Aubicq spent two months nursing him before he moved to Paris in January 1919 to begin work on his next commission.


The Peace Conference

When the war ended, the Imperial War Museum commissioned Orpen to stay in France and paint three large group portraits of the delegates to Paris Peace Conference. Throughout 1919 he painted individual portraits of the delegates to the Conference and these formed the basis of his two large paintings, '' A Peace Conference at the Quai d'Orsay'' and ''
The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors ''The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28 June 1919'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Irish artist William Orpen, completed in 1919. It was one of the paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate the Peace Conference ...
''. In both pictures the architecture overwhelms the gathered politicians and statesmen whose political wranglings and vainglory had diminished them in Orpen's eyes. Orpen considered that the whole conference was being conducted with a lack of respect or regard to the suffering of the soldiers who fought in the war, and he attempted to address this in the third painting of the commission. This picture was to show the delegates and military leaders as they entered the
Hall of Mirrors The Hall of Mirrors (french: Grande Galerie, Galerie des Glaces, Galerie de Louis XIV) is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hal ...
to sign the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...
. Orpen sent Evelyn Saint-George a letter detailing the original layout and composition of the work. Haig and
Marshal Foch Ferdinand Foch ( , ; 2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. An aggressive, even reckless commander at the First Marne, Flanders and Art ...
were at the centre with the other delegates on either side of them. Among the delegates, Orpen included two additional figures, a Grenadier Guards sergeant and Arthur Rhys-Davids, the young fighter pilot he had painted the week before he was killed in 1917. After working on this composition for nine months, Orpen painted over all the figures and replaced them with a coffin covered by the Union Jack and flanked by a pair of ghostly and wretched soldiers clothed in rags, actually the figure from the painting ''Blown Up, Mad'', with two cherubs above them supporting garlands of flowers. This painting, now known as '' To the Unknown British Soldier in France'', was first exhibited in 1923 at the Royal Academy. The public voted it picture of the year, but almost all of the critics who reviewed the picture condemned it; and, from a handful of critics and newspapers, Orpen received sustained abuse and was accused of bad taste, technical ineptitude and, for the two figures either side of the coffin, sacrilege. Orpen did receive some letters of appreciation from ex-servicemen and from family members of soldiers who had died in the war, but he still felt the need to issue a statement explaining the picture and his intentions. However, it was clearly not the group portrait the Imperial War Museum had commissioned, and the Museum refused to accept it. The picture remained in Orpen's studio until 1928 when, on his own initiative, he offered to paint out the cherubs and the soldiers if that would make it acceptable to the Museum. The then Director of the IWM replied that he would be happy to accept the picture as it was, or however Orpen wished to present it. Orpen painted out the soldiers and the painting was accepted by the Museum in 1928.


Later life

After the war, Orpen returned to painting society portraits and enjoyed great commercial success. He was never short of portrait commissions to work on and throughout the 1920s often earned £35,000 per year and could easily charge 2,000 guineas for a picture. Throughout the 1920s he exhibited at the Royal Academy each year and maintained homes and studios in both London and Paris, where he lived with Aubicq. Orpen continued to drink heavily and although he was separated from his wife, they never divorced. Eventually, he and Aubicq separated and she later married
William Grover-Williams William Charles Frederick Grover-Williams (born William Charles Frederick Grover, 16 January 1903 – 18 March 1945 (or shortly thereafter)), also known as "W Williams", was a British Grand Prix motor racing driver and special agent who worked ...
, Orpen's former chauffeur. His 1921 Royal Academy submission was a portrait of the head chef at the Hotel Chatham in Paris. The
Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
were keen to acquire the painting using funds from the
Chantrey Bequest Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey (7 April 1781 – 25 November 1841) was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time. Chantrey's most notable w ...
. After Orpen assured the Tate that the picture met the conditions required by the Bequest and that he had painted the picture entirely in Britain, the Tate announced the purchase. Several people then came forward to say that they had seen Orpen paint the picture in Paris. Orpen withdrew from the purchase and gave the Tate a portrait of Sir William Symington McCormick instead. Orpen subsequently submitted ''Le Chef de l'Hotel Chatham, Paris'' to the Royal Academy as his diploma painting. Orpen's wartime memoir, ''An Onlooker in France, 1917–1919'', was published in 1921 and all the proceeds donated to war charities. In 1925, Orpen painted ''Sunlight'', a brilliant depiction, in dappled sunlight, of a nude woman on a bed, behind whom hangs ''The Seine at Marly'', the 1874 painting by Monet which Orpen owned. In 1922, Orpen was reported to be receiving treatment in London for 'tobacco poisoning'. In 1923 Arthur Lee introduced Orpen to Edward, the Prince of Wales, and secured Orpen a commission to paint the Prince for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. A long series of disagreements followed between the Prince's advisors, who wanted a formal portrait, and Orpen, who wanted to paint Edward in his golf clothes. Orpen got his way but it was not until 1928 that the R&A put the painting on display. In 1927, Orpen accepted a commission to paint a portrait of
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...
but the completed work was rejected as being too informal for such a senior politician. The painting remained with Orpen and was only purchased by the National Portrait Gallery after his death. In 1928 Orpen stood for election as President of the Royal Academy but lost to Sir William Llewellyn. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the
1928 Summer Olympics The 1928 Summer Olympics ( nl, Olympische Zomerspelen 1928), officially known as the Games of the IX Olympiad ( nl, Spelen van de IXe Olympiade) and commonly known as Amsterdam 1928, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated fro ...
.


Death

Orpen became seriously ill in May 1931, and, after suffering periods of memory loss, died aged 52 in London, on 29 September 1931, and was buried at
Putney Vale Cemetery Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium in southwest London is located in Putney Vale, surrounded by Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park. It is located within of parkland. The cemetery was opened in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938 ...
. A stone tablet in the
Island of Ireland Peace Park The Island of Ireland Peace Park and its surrounding park ( ga, Páirc Síochána d'Oileán na hÉireann), also called the Irish Peace Park or Irish Peace Tower in Messines, near Ypres in Flanders, Belgium, is a war memorial to the soldiers of ...
Memorial at Messines, Belgium, commemorates him.


Self-portraits

Orpen created many self-portraits during his lifetime. He often portrayed himself in the act of painting and often created multiple images of himself. Whilst at the Slade he painted a double portrait of himself and Augustus John in the
Nell Gwynne Tavern The Nell Gwynne Tavern is a Grade II listed public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' fi ...
in London. In 1913 Orpen painted himself with a golden version of his painting ''Sowing New Seed'' as a background. ''Self-portrait as Chardin'', from 1908, shows Orpen as the painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin at an easel painting the same image. A year earlier he had painted a head-and-shoulders self-portrait after Chardin's 1776 work ''Self-Portrait with Pince-nez''. Orpen's 1910 self-portrait ''Leading the Life in the West'' has been read as a reference to the 1907 play ''
The Playboy of the Western World ''The Playboy of the Western World'' is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo (o ...
'', by
John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. His best known play '' The Playboy of the Western World'' was poorly ...
, whom Orpen knew and greatly liked. During World War I, Orpen painted at least three self-portraits, that ranged from the optimistic tones of ''Ready to Start'', in June 1917, to more sombre depictions painted only a few months later. Bruce Arnold noted Orpen's interest in self-portraiture: his self-portraits are often searching and dramatic and seem to meet a deep personal need for frequent self-analysis. He once painted himself as a jockey, and in his ''The Dead Ptarmigan – a self-portrait'' in the
National Gallery of Ireland The National Gallery of Ireland ( ga, Gailearaí Náisiúnta na hÉireann) houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on ...
he scowls from the frame while holding a dead
ptarmigan ''Lagopus'' is a small genus of birds in the grouse subfamily commonly known as ptarmigans (). The genus contains three living species with numerous described subspecies, all living in tundra or cold upland areas. Taxonomy and etymology The ge ...
at head height. Orpen's later self-portraits were less successful. Writing in 2005, Kenneth McConkey attributed the shallowness of Orpen's later portraits to emotional exhaustion, resulting from his experience as a painter of war. He wrote of Orpen's post-war activity: :"Now the portraits were done with mechanical efficiency, and without pause for reflection, save when he scrutinised himself and found a face he could no longer understand ... his face... grimaces, it squints, it scowls; in the 1920s it papers over the inner turmoil left by the long pathetic queues of gas-blinded tommies". File:William Orpen Self-portrait with glasses.jpg, ''Self-portrait with glasses'', (1907),
National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...
File:William Orpen The Man from Aran.jpg, ''The Man from Aran'', (1909) File:William Orpen, Self-Portrait,.jpg, ''Leading the Life in the West'', (c. 1910),
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
File:William Orpen-Self-Portrait-1917.jpg, ''Self-Portrait'', (1917) (Art.IWM ART 2382)


Legacy

A memorial exhibition of Orpen's work was held in New York in 1932 and the Royal Academy also held a memorial exhibition in 1933, part of which travelled to the
Birmingham City Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local h ...
. Orpen's former friend Augustus John vilified him after his death, and an account in
Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...
's 1937 autobiography of an encounter between the two in Cassel during the war further tarnished Orpen's reputation. In 1952 the then Director of the Tate Gallery, John Rothenstein, who was related to Orpen by marriage, published ''Modern English Painters'' which, despite its title, included a chapter on Orpen that comprehensively criticised every aspect of his work and personality. This had a huge influence, and for many years Orpen was largely forgotten. Other than the collection of his war paintings in the 'Orpen Gallery' of the Imperial War Museum, only two of Orpen's works were regularly on display in Britain, ''The Mirror'' in the Tate and ''A Women'' in
Leeds City Art Gallery Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a gallery, part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group, whose collection of 20th-century British Art was designated by the British government in 1997 as a collection "of national importance ...
. A major retrospective of his work was held at the
National Gallery of Ireland The National Gallery of Ireland ( ga, Gailearaí Náisiúnta na hÉireann) houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on ...
in 1978, but was not shown in Britain. Bruce Arnold's 1981 biography revived interest in Orpen among scholars, and in 2005 a major retrospective which also included his peacetime work was held at the
Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
, and led to a reappraisal of his place in British and Irish culture. Bruce Arnold, writing in ''Irish Art a Concise History'' in 1969 stated:
... while at times his portraits are rather shallow, he was capable of excellent and sympathetic work, particularly in family and group portraits.
As noted by his biographer, H. L. Wellington,
Orpen was fond of painting women sitters against a black background, lighting the figure from two sides, an arrangement which gave luminosity and a certain ethereal appearance to his unfaltering but matter of fact statement…


Memberships

Orpen was a member or affiliated with the following organisations: * 1900: Member,
New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...
* 1904: Elected associate of Royal Hibernian Academy * 1908: Elected member of Royal Hibernian Academy * 1908: Member, National Portrait Society * 1919: Elected associate of the
Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
* 1921: Elected member of the Royal Academy * 1921: President,
International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers was a union of professional artists that existed from 1898 to 1925, "To promote the study, practice, and knowledge of sculpture, painting, etching, lithographing, engraving, and kindred ...


Bibliography

* ''An Onlooker in France, 1917–1919'' (1921) * ''Stories of Old Ireland and Myself'' (1924) * ''The Outline of Art'' (1924)


References


Further reading

* *
Bunbury, Turtle
''The Glorious Madness, Tales of The Irish and The Great War'',
Sir William Orpen, pp. 116–21, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 12 (2014) * Angeria Rigamonti di Cuto',
Staging the modernist self: the self-portraits of William Orpen
, ''Visual Culture in Britain'', volume 13, issue 3, 2012


External links

* : works by William Orpen in public British collections
William Orpen
at
Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
Collection Search. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Orpen, William 1878 births 1931 deaths 19th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish painters Irish male painters Alumni of the National College of Art and Design Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British Army personnel of World War I Burials at Putney Vale Cemetery Irish knights Irish people of World War I Irish portrait painters Irish war artists Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire People from Stillorgan Royal Academicians Members of the Royal Hibernian Academy Royal Army Service Corps officers World War I artists Olympic competitors in art competitions Military personnel from County Dublin