Self-Portrait

Sir William Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA (1878-1931)

1924?

Oil on panel

H 79.1 x W 64.8 cm

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; accession no. 1486

Gift from Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, 1928

Bruce Arnold describes Orpen's approach to self-portraiture as "honest and direct" (263), but there is a subtle and questioning mirror effect here which shows the artist's other selves leading up to his present self: where has life brought him, still palette in hand?

Text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee, with image reproduced from Art UK on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND).