The Art of Sir William Orpen
The dazzling Irish painter created portraits
with an amazing force of precision.
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of my favorite artists has always been the great Irish painter Sir
William Orpen (1878 - 1931). His masterful portraits are extraordinarily
vivid, the combined product of superb draftsmanship, rich color,
and an unerring control of tonal values. He was first and foremost
a painter — the strong, decisive brushstrokes are placed with
athletic vigor and uncanny accuracy. There never seems to be an
ounce of hesitancy or indecision — every stroke registers like
a clear, precise note of music. I offer four examples for you to
study:
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1. Portrait of Master Spottiswoode
This very appealing portrait of a young boy is based
on a conventional "artist's studio pose" —
the lad takes his position before a standard neutral
studio drape, looks "three-quarter left,"
and maintains an erect pose. But there is nothing conventional
or ordinary in the execution. The background sparkles
with rich, variegated color. The four pieces of the
boy's costume register individual color notes that resound
like major chords: the ochre smock has lush passages
of orange and yellow, the blue leggings and the maroon
stockings each strike a musical note, and the white
at the boy's throat draws the eye upward. Don't fail
to notice Orpen's masterful use of reflected light —
it shimmers in the shadows side of the face and glows
in the shadows of the smock.
Oil on canvas
38 x 30 inches
Private collection
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It is a rare treat to see an Orpen
original. Very few are exhibited in American museums. The National
Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, features several. In his 1935(?)
book The Technique of Portrait Painting (Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott
Company, publishers) artist and author Harrington Mann pays tribute
to Orpen:
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"The untimely death of Sir William Orpen has been a
blow to modern British art. We have lost a painter who, while
he had already achieved fame, would have carried the laurels
of the British school of to-day to a still higher level had
he lived. His work shows an amazing force of precision in
the realization of individual character. He never failed to
tell you all about his sitter — all that could be told
in paint by the cleverest hand and the keenest eye. The face
of the man before him was like the page of an open book which
he read with astonishing insight He made a literal transcript
which he handed on to anyone who cared to know.
"It is the physical character which is of interest to
the painter, but he knows that if he can but get this skin-deep
truth he has got everything Technically Orpen was splendidly
equipped There was no slashing sleight-of-hand like Boldini
There was neither the carefree dexterity of Hals, nor the
facile skill of Sargent, but he had his own unerring precision
of touch which gave him the proficiency necessary to produce
his masterpieces
"Even with his Irish sense of humour Orpen always told
the truth. This is real portraiture."
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Every working portrait artist would do well to study Orpen.
William Orpen, the son of
a Dublin solicitor was born in Stillorgan, County Dublin in 1878.
He studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and the Slade
School in London, where his fellow students included Augustus John.
Orpen soon became known for his portraits of public figures and
during his career produced over six hundred of these pictures.
In 1916 Orpen's friend, the Quartermaster
General, Sir John Cowans, arranged for him to receive a commission
in the Army Service Corps. This mainly involved him painting the
portraits of senior political and military figures such as Winston
Churchill and Lord Derby. In 1919 Orpen was commissioned to paint
portraits of the politicians at the Versailles Peace Conference.
After the war Orpen returned to portrait
painting, including one of Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1926).
Sir William Orpen died in 1931.
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