On the Town: Memories of William Orpen were rekindled at the opening of an exhibition of his work at the National Gallery this week.
"Orpen loved women, and painted them in various states of dress and undress," said Senator Martin Mansergh who opened the show, describing it as comprising "a varied sample" of Orpen's prolific work. The artist, he added, also "had a great sense of irreverent and self-deprecating humour".
Orphen's granddaughters, Susanna Segnit and Joanna Hamilton, remembered their mother, Kit Orpen Nicoll, and the great love she had for her famous father.
"She adored him. She loved him to bits. He was great fun and she was very like him," said Segnit.
As a child, Kit was painted many times by her father at various locations in Howth. Later this week, the family gathered to fulfil a wish she had to have her ashes scattered in Dublin Bay.
Orpen, a Dublin-born artist who found his main livelihood in London, became a leading first World War artist. He also painted portraits of figures such as Count John McCormack, Winston Churchill and Michael Davitt. The exhibition, in the gallery's Millennium Wing, includes 70 oil paintings, with "some interesting and highly symbolic Irish pictures, including Sowing New Seed and The Holy Well", said Mansergh.
Desmond FitzGerald, the Knight of Glin, recalled visiting the Channel Island of Guernsey in the early 1970s, where Vivien Graves, who was Orpen's daughter, gave him three albums with "hundreds of drawings and sketches to give to the gallery". These are also on view in a complementary exhibition in the Print Gallery.
Graves's grandson, James Birkin, who is a London-based lawyer, was also at the opening.
FitzGerald commented on "the incredible style and brilliant verve" of Orpen's paintings. "The most beautiful paintings are those in Howth, in particular On the Beach, Howth, of a lady lying under a parasol with her daughter."
Among those at the opening were: Paul Durcan, the Ireland Professor of Poetry; Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland; artist Pauline Bewick; poet Michael O'Siadhail and his wife, Bríd; and artists Louis Le Brocquy and his wife, Anne Madden, who were both just back from Paris, where work by Madden is on view at Le Centre Culturel Irelandais.
Guests were reminded by Raymond Keaveney, director of the National Gallery, that almost 30 years have passed since the centenary exhibition of Orpen's work in Dublin in 1978.
William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death continues at the National Gallery of Ireland until Sun, Aug 28