WILLIAM ORPEN
the end of his paintbrush, the small
nuggets of white paint creating
highlights on Bartle’s pearl necklace.
Likewise, technical research of the
pigments used in Orpen’s 1920
portrait of Sir William McCormick
revealed tiny flecks of white added
while the finished work was still wet to
create highlights around the sitter’s
collar. Similar flecks are visible in
Dame Madge Kendal, his richly
coloured portrayal of the English
actress, with dots of white drawing
attention to her eyes and pearls.
Orpen painted vigorously, usually
finishing a single portrait in just four
hour-long sittings. “While still young
he had, by diligent work, accumulated
such a mass of experience, and
so much judgement and manual
dexterity, that he could paint as
fast as he thought” said his studio
assistant Sean Keating in 1937.
The substantial 1909 painting
Homage to Manet with its canvas
enlarged, by extension, on the left
sideandthebottomedge,revealsOrpen mastering spatial composition
with the boldness to change its size
during the painting process. The
portrait itself is near-dominated by a
painting within a painting, with French
modernist Édouard Manet’s Eva
Gonzalès hung above the group of six
men: author George Moore, art dealer
Sir Hugh Lane, plus the artists Philip
Wilson Steer, Walter Sickert, Dugald
Sutherland MacColl and Henry Tonks.
Orpen painted his work in a similar
modernist manner, its realism
capturing a moment in time. Was he
focusing our attention on Manet’s
work? Or was he subtly linking the
modernity of Manet’s depiction of
Gonzalès to the similarly forward-
thinking aims of the men?
Marriott sees the work as much
more about the group of people
gathered in Orpen’s studio, than it is
about Manet. Perhaps Orpen thought
so too, widening and lengthening the
canvas to focus more on the people
than the artwork. The men’s relaxed
informality acknowledges Orpen’s
figurative dexterity. He was a superb
draughtsman with a sound knowledge
of the human figure.
Orpen used commercially prepared
canvases with two layers of ground.
In her analysis, Marriott found lower
layers of chalk with Zinc White
pigment, used to improve brightness
and opacity. Upper layers were
thinner, the pure Lead White pigment
achieving a luminous brightness.
Orpen adapted his canvas primers
to suit the portrait he was painting,
lowering or heightening tones
accordingly – 1910’s The Studio
is a good example of this. Cicely
Robinson, curator of Method &
Mastery, describes how Orpen built
layers of opaque white tones in this
painting, creating a spacious effect
from the darker tones underneath
coming through to create shadows.
The effect is sunlight dappled on the
walls of the studio, the semi-naked
figure, and the painter (not Orpen).
Orpen was inspired by the
theatrical realism of paintings by
Velázquez, Goya and Manet – the
latter a follower of the two earlier
Spanish masters. This is expressed
in vivid portraits with solid rich-black
backgrounds, punctuated with a
strong spotlight on the subject.
A stunning example is the large 1921BELOW William
Orpen, Le Chef de
l’Hôtel Chatham,
Paris, 1921,
oil on canvas,
127x102.5cm
Orpen was a superb
draughtsman with a
sound knowledge of
the human figure
PHOTO: © ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, LONDON/JOHN HAMMOND