William Orpen (1878–1931)

Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, Irish-born British portrait painter. He studied art at the Metropolitan School and at the Slade School in London where, at the time, great emphasis was put on the study of old masters. Born in Stillorgan, County Dublin, William Newenham Montague Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular painter of the well-to-do in the period leading up to World War I. He was also involved in the Celtic revival in his native Ireland and he took part in the attempt there to find a visual counterpart to the birth of new national literary language (McConkey 2005). Although his studio was in London, he spent time in Ireland painting, he was a friend of Hugh Lane and influenced the Irish realist painters, like Sean Keating, who were beginning their careers at that time. Like Sir John Lavery, William Orpen was made an official war painter of the First World War and in 1917 he travelled to the Western Front. He produce