Reflections: China and Japan
Artist
Sir William Orpen
(1878 - 1931)
Date1902
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions40.5 x 51 cm
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery.
Lane Gift, 1912.
Object number35
DescriptionWilliam Orpen entered the Dublin Metropolitan School shortly before his thirteenth birthday. An extremely talented student who excelled in drawing, he was highly esteemed as one willing and eager to learn. In 1896 he attended the Slade School of Art and he lived and worked in London for the remainder of his life pursuing a highly successful and lucrative career as a portraitist. However, Orpen maintained links with Ireland through his influential role as a part-time teacher at the Metropolitan School of Art, his contributing work to exhibitions and summer holidays with his family at Howth. He also painted a number of allegorical works inspired by Irish subject matter. Orpen was a close friend of Hugh Lane to whom he was also distantly related and Lane's astute acquisition of modern French masters is celebrated in Orpen's painting Homage to Manet (Manchester City Art Gallery). While Orpen had accompanied Lane to Paris to acquire these works in 1905, his own painting eschewed contemporary avant-garde developments. Reflections: China and Japan is a virtuoso still life painting which demonstrates Orpen's facility at depicting texture and reflective surfaces with flair and skill, and with less emphasis placed on a coherent compositional arrangement. On View
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