Sir William Orpen R.A, R.H.A

1878 - 1931

William Orpen was an Irish artist who mainly worked in London, an exceptionally talented draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for wealthy members of Edwardian society. Six weeks before his thirteenth birthday, Orpen enrolled at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. In his six years there, he won every major prize before leaving to study at the Slade School from 1897-9. There, he mastered oil painting and experimented with different painting techniques and effects. His teachers at the Slade included Henry Tonks, Philip Wilson Steer and Frederick Brown, all of whom were members of the New English Art Club; they ensured he exhibited there in 1899 and that he became a member in 1900. Like John and Ambrose McEvoy, he made sepia ink wash drawings of his daily life as a student and graduate, and went on to illustrate letters with such drawings for much of his life. In 1903, Orpen and Augustus John set up the Chelsea School of Art, where, among others, Henry Lamb was a student, but later he and John fell out over the latter's treatment of his dying wife, Ida Nettleship (1877-1907). In World War I, he was the most prolific of the official war artists sent by Britain to the Western Front, producing drawings and paintings of fighting and portraits of generals and politicians. In 1918, he was both knighted and elected to the Royal Academy.