Ready to Start, Self Portrait, 1917. Imperial War Museum.
James Dixon gets bowled over by the new William Orpen exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
Throughout the first quarter of the last century, William Orpen was widely regarded as one of the best portrait artists of his generation. His commissions were paid for in vast sums and his works habitually replicated in newspapers.
That being so, it is surprising, but certainly welcome, that the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition, running until May 2 2005, is the first of his work to be held in a UK national gallery.
The exhibition is divided thematically, rather than chronologically, allowing the viewer to gain a deeper understanding of Orpen’s many and varied influences. The first room of the gallery discusses, in turn, the self, society, women and the body, and politics.
Self Portrait with Sowing New Seed, 1913. The Saint Louis Art Museum.
Beginning your view with Orpen’s self-portraits, you’ll be immediately struck by the man himself. He often depicts himself in the same, slightly superior pose, always in a costume or distinctive setting and the messages that can be wormed out of the items with which Orpen surrounds himself can be almost more absorbing than the central figure.
A good pupil of the Slade School, which based its teaching around life-drawing and the Old Masters, Orpen fills his works with both overt and hidden references to his artistic forbears as well as to his contemporaries.
The Mirror, 1900. Tate, London 2004.
Augustus John, for example, features heavily in a number of Orpen’s works, including the lively Improvisation on a Barrel Organ in which he is depicted dancing wildly (in front of Hogarth’s shrimp girl) in the centre of the painting. This piece is a particularly good example of Orpen’s humour, in this case a gentle mocking of John’s desire to leave society and live the life of a gypsy… because, of course, you cannot improvise on a barrel organ.
Orpen’s female figures, largely his mistresses, are equally striking and he manages to endow his women with a real natural beauty, almost without exception. English Nude is particularly striking, especially compared to other nudes of the period that conformed to a rigorous classical code.
Early Morning, 1922. Private Collection, Melbourne, Australia. Courtesy Richard Nagy Fine Art, London.
Here, the subject lies head down on an unmade bed, a sexual, wanting image that was particularly shocking for Orpen’s audience of 1906. You can forget pickled sharks; this is modern art in its truest sense.
Orpen also worked as an official war artist in France during the last two years of the Great War. His landscapes of deserted and overgrown battlefields are particularly atmospheric, but it is in his life paintings that Orpen’s genius again shines.
German Wire, Thiepval, 1917. Imperial War Museum.
Looking at the characters in his scenes, the suffering, pain, hope or sheer incomprehension of the people involved is manifest. The Mad Woman of Douai is especially haunting, the green characters surrounding and looking at the seated mad woman, they in turn, surrounded by ruins and the detritus of war.
Madness is a particular theme of Orpen’s war art, no clearer than in his depictions of shell-shocked soldiers who seem on occasion to be entirely empty, wholly destroyed by their experiences.
It seems to me that Orpen became obsessed with the war, demonstrated in his attention to detail and clarity of message: at times mocking, at times contemplative, fascinated with the context within which he found himself working.
This exhibition is hugely important, wholly inspiring and absorbing almost to the point of no return. It’s close to impossible to do justice to it here. Politics, Sex and Death needs to be seen. By everyone. Now.
