William Orpen
Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen KBE RA (born November 27, 1878 in Stillorgan in what is now County Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown , Ireland ; † September 29, 1931 in London ) was an Irish-born British painter . He was a major exponent of post-impressionism in Great Britain. In addition to landscapes and numerous portraits, the artist took part in the government's War Artist project and produced a large number of war images directly on the Western Front .
Life
William Orpen was the son of a lawyer and came from a Protestant family. His artistic talent was recognized at an early age and at the age of eleven he attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. At the age of 17 he moved to London, where he studied with Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Fine Art . Here was one of Augustus John to his classmates.
He received his first recognition in 1899 when he received the price for summer composition for his allegorical work The Play Scene from Hamlet . In this Orpen summarized the experiences of his apprenticeship and showed various stylistic borrowings. Immediately after the Slade School, he exhibited works in the New English Art Club . His early work The Mirror is reminiscent of works by Gerard ter Borch and Gabriel Metsu in its detailed accuracy . The portrait of Augustus John from the same period, on the other hand, is clearly influenced by James McNeill Whistler and Orpen's role model, Édouard Manet . William Orpen married Grace Newstub in 1901. The marriage produced three daughters.
Self portrait
Play Scene from Hamlet
The Mirror 
Augustus John 
Lady Orpen
In 1902 he opened a teaching studio in Chelsea with Augustus John and also taught at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin until 1914 . Through the recommendations of John Singer Sargent , he developed into one of the most sought-after portrait painters of his time. The portrait of Mrs. St. George is a good example of this. At the same time, typical impressionistic motifs such as Midday on the Beach were created . Archetypal figures such as The Man from Aran emerged during his numerous stays in Ireland . The painting Hommage to Manet can also be seen as his contribution to the cultural rebirth of his Irish homeland ( Irish Renaissance ) . In this picture, Orpen gathered under Manet's portrait Eva Gonzalès the art collector Hugh Lane , who owned the painting, as well as the artists George Moore , Walter Sickert , Henry Tonks , Wilson Steer and Dugald Sutherland MacColl . Orpen exerted great influence on the following generation of Irish artists, such as Seán Keating . However , Orpen viewed the nationalist uprising against English rule during the Easter Rising of 1916 as treason and never returned to his Irish homeland.
Portrait Mrs. St. George 
Midday on the Beach 
The Man from Aran 
Homage to Manet
Orpen stopped teaching at the beginning of the First World War . The caricature Kaiser Wilhelm as the Devil ( Kaiser Wilhelm II as the devil) from 1914 is a testimony to his attitude towards this time . In support of the British Red Cross , he sold blank canvases on which the portraits of the buyers would later be created. He made direct contact with the army through Sir John Cowans, Quartermaster General of the British Army. In the Army Service Corps he was initially entrusted with office work in the Kensington Barracks, until he was drafted in 1916 together with other artists such as Paul Nash , Muirhead Bone and Wyndham Lewis to the War Artist project of the war propaganda bureau. At first he made numerous portraits of combatants during this time, before he went directly to France on the Western Front in 1917 . During this time at the front, pictures such as A Grenadier Guardsmen , Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897–1917) , Dead Germans in a Trench and A Tank were created . Much of the war images are now in the Imperial War Museum in London. After the war, Orpen published his war memories in a book under the original title An Onlooker in France .
Kaiser Wilhelm as the Devil 
A Grenadier Guardsmen 
Dead Germans in a Trench 
A tank
Because of the success of his war paintings, William Orpen was accepted into the Order of the British Empire as Knight Commander in 1918 . The following year he was accepted as a member of the London Royal Academy of Arts . In return, he gave the portrait of Le Chef de l'Hôtel Chatham as his diploma work to the Royal Academy in 1921 . The British government also appointed him official portrait artist during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 . During the peace treaty was signed in Versailles was one of his most famous paintings, The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles (The signing of the peace treaty in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles ) .
He caused a scandal in 1923 when his painting To the Unknown British Soldier in France was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art. The picture showed a coffin covered with a British flag in the Palace of Versailles, flanked by two half-dressed soldiers. After violent attacks by the press, the Imperial War Museum only accepted the painting after Orpen had painted over the two soldiers.
In his late work, Orpen created numerous portraits of important personalities of his time. These include the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill as well as the American President Woodrow Wilson and the art collector Robert Sterling Clark . When William Orpen died in 1931 at the age of 52, he had created more than 600 portraits. Since 1929 he was an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .
To the Unknown British Soldier in France 
Woodrow Wilson 
David Lloyd George 
Robert Sterling Clark
Works
- To Onlooker in France 1917-1919 . Williams & Norgate , London, 1924.
- Stories of Old Ireland & myself . Williams & Norgate, London, 1924.
literature
- Robert Upstone: William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death . London, 2005, ISBN 0-85667-596-2
- Bruce Arnold: Orpen: William Orpen 1878-1931, (Lives of Irish Artist) . 1991, ISBN 0-948524-25-1
- Exhibition catalog National Gallery of Ireland: William Orpen, 1878–1931: A Centenary Exhibition . Dublin, 1978, ISBN 0-903162-20-2
- Paul George Konody, Sidney Dark: Sir William Orpen: Artist & man . London 1932
Web links
- Imperial War Museum : William Orpen
- Artcyclopedia: Sir William Orpen
Individual evidence
- ^ William Orpen, RA in the database of the Royal Academy of Arts , English, accessed on May 25, 2013.
- ^ Honorary Members: William Orpen. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 18, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Orpen, William |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Newenham Montague Orpen, Sir William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Irish-British painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 27, 1878 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stillorgan , Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 29, 1931 |
| Place of death | London |