A Soupçon of Orpen

In the 1920s, William Orpen was the leading society portraitist of his day, and you can appreciate just why in an exhibition at the Watts Gallery in Surrey, William Orpen: Method & Mastery. 

There's a certain flashiness to some of Orpen's work, as perhaps befits a man who moved in flashy circles, but his rapidly executed pictures are often insightful and brilliantly done. This is quite a small show, but it contains a handful of really memorable paintings. 

And possibly the most memorable is this one: Le Chef de l'Hôtel Chatham, Paris. 

Not a society portrait, this, but a celebrity, or to be more precise, someone who was about to enjoy fame, albeit fleetingly. Orpen's diploma work for the Royal Academy, this depiction of Eugène Grossriether was the picture of the year at the 1921 Summer Exhibition. Grossriether moved to London and edited a book aimed at bringing French cooking to the English. This is the cook as hero, in pristine whites with some splendid facial hair, not besmirched by a speck of blood from the meat on the table and a full glass beside him. 

A bravura picture from Orpen, and this exhibition demonstrates how he acquired that technique. Born in Dublin in 1878, he trained in the city and later at the Slade School in London, becoming a hugely proficient draughtsman and using the study of anatomy to deepen his understanding of the human body. He later returned to Dublin to teach. 

Among the first works you see in this show is a stark 1906 Nude Study, which divided the critics, some praising its boldness, some attacking the harsh lighting and provocative pose. There's also an early portrait, of friend and journalist Anita Bartle, that betrays the influence of Rubens. Analysis of the painting -- a feature of this exhibition -- demonstrates how Orpen worked at speed, blending wet paints together on the canvas, and scratching the surface of the paint to create highlights from the layer below. Orpen worked "very fast, completely concentrated on his work, and oblivious of his surroundings," a student was quoted as saying. 

"He loved paint itself," a studio assistant recalled, "and would say: 'Wouldn't you like to eat it?'" 

Orpen's stunning technique can be seen in this wonderful view of his studio in Kensington. You sense the influence of the masters of the Dutch Golden Age with the light falling through the window from the left, casting shadows in subtly different colours not only on the model and the back wall, but on the green drapery, the artist himself and the chair he's using as an easel. And there's a fine tiled floor too, surely worthy of Pieter de Hooch. 

If Orpen is much thought of today, it's generally as an artist of World War I (he was knighted for his work depicting the conflict), and the Imperial War Museum owns a fair number of his paintings.

This is Orpen, in what is ostensibly a self-portrait in helmet, balaclava, scarf and greatcoat. Those eyes are quite penetrating, and he's got his eye on you, the viewer; you're the real subject, the one being recorded by his pencil in his notebook.  

Quite a disconcerting image, and indeed Orpen's war pictures have a strange feel to them; they're often very brightly and lightly painted even when recording the horrors of the front line.

Three years into the war, and this unnamed Grenadier Guardsman wears a haunted, anxious expression, his hands gripped tightly around his rifle in front of a lurid blue sky.

It perhaps wasn't all hellish on the Western Front for Orpen, though. He painted his French mistress and submitted the picture to the censor as that of a spy who'd been executed by the French army. He had to admit to fabricating the story, and the episode earned him a reprimand from the War Office.

After the war, Orpen succeeded John Singer Sargent as one of the leading portraitists of the rich and famous. You could buy a commercially produced "Orpen" brush of the type he favoured.

In this picture, the Scottish literary scholar Sir William McCormick is depicted in an extremely casual yet self-assured pose, the sole of his shoe turned toward the viewer, his suit jacket rumpled between the seat and the side of the chair. Little white highlights make the chair itself seem incredibly three-dimensional.

There are more white highlights in this portrait, celebrating the 80th birthday of the actress Dame Madge Kendal, brushstrokes that capture a glint in her eye. Orpen's rapid application of paint splendidly renders a wide variety of fabrics and colours.

Good enough to eat, then, but while delicious, this is really just a taster or a large starter rather than a full menu of quite a prolific painter. There are drawings and other exhibits, but you only actually get to see 15 of Orpen's full-fledged canvases in this show: Some of them are quite large, and the Watts exhibition space is not that big. No room, alas, for some of Orpen's remarkable self-portraits, such as the one from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge featuring a series of fractured, reflecting images disappearing into the distance. 

Perhaps another, more filling Orpen show is on a future menu somewhere?

Practicalities

William Orpen: Method & Mastery runs at the Watts Gallery in Compton, near Guildford, until February 23. It's open daily from 1030 to 1700. Tickets to the gallery complex, which include the collection of works by GF Watts ("England's Michelangelo" for the Victorians) cost £11.50 without Gift Aid and can be bought online here.

Compton is just off the A3 if you're travelling by car, but it's easy to get to by public transport: Take a train to Guildford, from where the 46 bus runs direct to the gallery once an hour Mondays to Saturdays, taking just 10 minutes. On a nice day, it's a pleasant walk from Guildford on an easy route in a little over an hour via the River Wey and then the North Downs Way, which goes right past the Watts Gallery.

Images

William Orpen, Le Chef de l'Hôtel Chatham, Paris, c. 1921. © Royal Academy of Arts, London;  Photo: John Hammond
William Orpen, The Studio, c. 1910, Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery). Photo: Bridgeman Images
William Orpen, Self-Portrait, 1917, Imperial War Museum, London. © IWM (Art. IWM ART 2382)
William Orpen, A Grenadier Guardsman, 1917, Imperial War Museum, London. © IWM (Art. IWM ART 3045)
William Orpen, Sir William McCormick, 1920, Tate Britain, London. Photo © Tate
William Orpen, Dame Madge Kendal, c. 1927-28, Tate Britain, London. Photo © Tate