Self-portrait

Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London. He was a fine draughtsman and a popular commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in Edwardian society. During World War I, he was the most prolific of the official artists sent by Britain to the Western Front. There, he produced drawings and paintings of servicemen, dead soldiers, and German prisoners of war, as well as portraits of generals and politicians. Most of these works, 138 in all, he donated to the British government and they are now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum. Orpen created many self-portraits during his lifetime. He often portrayed himself in the act of painting and created multiple images of himself. During World War One, Orpen painted at least three self-portraits that ranged from the optimistic tones of Ready to Start, in June 1917, to more somber depictions painted only a few months later. Bruce Arnold noted Orpen's interest in self-portraiture: "his self-portraits are often searching and dramatic". He once painted himself as a jockey and in his The Dead Ptarmigan — a self-portrait in the National Gallery of Ireland - he scowls from the frame while holding a dead ptarmigan (which is a kind of gamebird) at head height.