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

Sale, Christie's, London, 9th November 1989, lot 57;
Pyms Gallery, London;
Sotheby's, London, 16th May 1996, lot 457, whence purchased by the present owner

London, Pyms Gallery, An Ireland... Imagined: An Exhibition of Irish Paintings and Drawings, 1860-1960, 1993, no.29, pp.50-51, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

The colours are warmer than the illustration suggests and the catalogue illustration has been slightly cropped; there is a further 1in around each edge. Original canvas. There are some feint lines of surface craquelure to the left of Orpen's mouth and some further feint lines to his white scarf in the bottom left corner otherwise in good overall condition with some strong passages of impasto throughout. Under ultraviolet light, there are some small spots of retouching to the white scarf by the bottom left edge, three small spots in the bottom right corner, 3 spots along the bottom edge and a spot in the upper right corner. Held in a plaster gilt frame.
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Orpen executed self-portraits throughout his career. They were described by PG Konody, one of his early biographers as a sort of 'busman's holiday' from the day-to day business of painting other people's portraits (P G Konody and S Dark, Sir William Orpen, Artist and Man, Seeley Service, London, 1932, p. 239). Konody and Arnold compare Orpen's interest in self scrutiny to that of Rembrandt, while James White draws Picasso into the comparison. All refer to the theatricality of these images.

Orpen's self-portraits fall broadly into two types. There are 'studio' self-portraits which show the painter in particular situations. In the Portrait of the Artist (1908, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne), for instance, the painter is costumed as a Balzac/Chardin figure. In Ready to Start, (1917, Imperial War Museum), he is a tin-helmeted 'Tommy' about to set off for the Front. In many of these works the painter glimpses himself in studio mirrors, the frames of which are contained within the picture. A complex play of rectangles, of pictures-within-the-picture, follows from this. Leading the Life in the West (1910, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), forms a bridge between this group and the 'Irish' self-portraits which often characterise the painter as a 'playboy of the western world'. Orpen clearly felt that his own quirky personality and facial characteristics were suited to such heroic types as The Baldoyle Steeplechaser (aka The Jockey), (c.1909, National Museum, Stockholm), the huntsman in The Dead Ptarmigan (fig.1, 1909, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), and The Man from Aran (c.1916, Private Collection). Appearing in such venues as the New English Art Club and the salons of the Goupil Gallery, these paintings functioned as a kind of visual propaganda for the cultural revival and they stimulated Orpen's Slade associates, such as Henry Lamb, Gerald Leslie Brockhurst and Augustus John to work in Ireland. The work of Orpen's Irish pupils greatly depended upon their inspiration. Tuohy's Mayo Peasant Boy (1912, Hugh Lane Art Gallery, Dublin), Keating's Tipperary Hurler (c.1932, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin) and Charles Lamb's Fisherman with Pollan (1926, Private Collection) would be unthinkable without this seminal series.

The Self-Portrait, 1912, is one of the last works in the group. It relates closely to The Young Man from the West (1909, Private Collection) although the close-up format in the later version brings Orpen's facial features under more detailed scrutiny. The dramatic lighting accentuates the sharp angularity of the nose and enhances the painter's piercing stare. Despite the fact that he produced so many self-portraits, Orpen disliked his own features and regarded himself as ugly. Frequently he satirized himself in humorous marginalia in letters.

One such, addressed to Sir Charles Walston, expresses delight that he and his wife liked a self-portrait drawing, (Older Again Orpsie Boy, c.1925), which they had acquired - however, he felt compelled to add, '...I regret very much that the subject is so ugly it has always been a source of annoyance to me. Yet –

For Beauty I'm not a Star
Others are handsomer by far
But my face, I don't mind it
For I am behind it
It's the people in front get the jar'
(quoted F.Rutter, 'Orpen's Self Portraits', The Strand Magazine, March 1932, p.276).

In a sense, however, Orpen's physical appearance is not the issue in the 'Irish' self-portraits, so much as the role he adopts. Like Rembrandt he plays many parts. The most consistent of these in the years prior to the Great War is that of the Irish hero, the mythic figure who retains an ancient culture, the man from the West.

The Orpen Research Project are grateful to Alan and Mary Hobart, Pyms Gallery, London, for granting permission to use the text from their catalogue, op.cit, no.29, pp.50-51, as the basis for this entry.