Orpen, self-portrait painting Sowing New Seed (1913) (Saint Louis Art Museum)
Born
William Newenham Montague Orpen
(1878-11-27)27 November 1878
Stillorgan, County Dublin, Ireland
Died
29 September 1931(1931-09-29) (aged 52)
London, England
Resting place
Putney Vale Cemetery
Education
National College of Art and Design
Slade School of Fine Art
Known for
Portraits, War Art
Notable work
The Refugee
Awards
KBE
Website
Official Website
Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who mainly worked in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in Edwardian society, though many of his most striking paintings are self-portraits.
During World War I, he was the most prolific of the official war artists sent by Britain to the Western Front. 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. His connections to the senior ranks of the British Army 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 in the 1918 Birthday Honours, and also elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, his determination to serve as a war artist cost him both his health and his social standing in Britain.[1]
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.[2]
^H. C. G. Matthew & Brian Harrison, ed. (2004). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Vol 41 (Norbary-Osborn). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-861391-6.
^Paul Gough (2010). A Terrible Beauty: British Artists in the First World War. Sansom and Company. ISBN 978-1-906593-00-1.
Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who mainly worked in London. Orpen was a...
operator, (cousin of WilliamOrpen) Arthur Orpen Herbert (1831–1890), railway commissioner Bea Orpen (1913–1980), Irish painter Charles Orpen (1791–1856), Irish...
son of Dr. John Herbert Orpen (1805–1888) and Ellen Susanna Gertude Richards (?–1855) and a second cousin of Sir WilliamOrpen. He married his first cousin...
Metropolitan School of Art, where she studied under the Irish artist WilliamOrpen. Orpen regarded Gifford as one of his most talented pupils. He often sketched...
oil-on-canvas painting by Irish artist WilliamOrpen, completed in 1919. It was one of the paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate the Peace Conference...
Haldeman. They divorced in 1938, without issue. In 1939, she married F/Lt William Vincent Soltau of the Royal Air Force. They divorced, without issue, in...
also features in the backdrop of multiple paintings by Irish artist WilliamOrpen (1878-1931) and by American artist James Whistler. Howth Head is the...
seventeen portraits of participants at the Versailles Conference by Sir WilliamOrpen, amongst whom were Woodrow Wilson and George Barnes. At the height of...
German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The...
Valois, Samuel Beckett (also a Nobel prize-winner) and the artist Sir WilliamOrpen came from the same social background. Chris de Burgh and the rock concert...
Birmingham and a Cabinet minister. His mother was Florence Kenrick, a cousin of William Kenrick MP; she died when he was a small boy. Joseph Chamberlain had had...
artist Sir WilliamOrpen, exhibited in one state in 1923 and then modified in 1927. It was one of three paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate...
former secretary. Beresford was a close friend of Augustus John and Sir WilliamOrpen, another Irishman – they produced a number of images of each other....
their limousine and crashed. William Greer, chauffeur to John F. Kennedy William Grover-Williams, chauffeur to WilliamOrpen Leopold Lojka, chauffeur to...
tradition of painting emerged, including such figures as John Butler Yeats, WilliamOrpen, Jack Yeats and Louis le Brocquy. Contemporary Irish visual artists...
universities. His portrait was painted many times; after sitting for Sir WilliamOrpen in 1924, Lang reportedly remarked to Bishop Hensley Henson of Durham...
Daniel Maclise, John Lavery, WilliamOrpen (both these War Artists in WWI), John Butler Yeats (father of Jack and William Butler), Henry Jones Thaddeus...
with James McNeill Whistler and was clearly influenced by him. Like WilliamOrpen, Lavery was appointed an official artist in the First World War. Ill...
services to First World War remembrance. WilliamOrpen: Mines and the Bapaume Road, La Boisselle (Art.IWMART2962) Orpen: The Great Mine, La Boisselle (Art.IWMART2379)...
Collection, which contains works by Irish artists such as John Lavery, WilliamOrpen, Louis le Brocquy and Jack B. Yeats. Smurfit also commissioned Anna...
other artists to France including Eric Kennington, WilliamOrpen, Paul Nash, C. R. W. Nevinson and William Rothenstein. John Lavery was recruited to paint...
by Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian king, William I, the assembled German princes and lords declared William I the German emperor in the Hall of Mirrors...
William Ferguson Massey PC (26 March 1856 – 10 May 1925) was a politician who served as the 19th prime minister of New Zealand from May 1912 to May 1925...
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