Whytes Important Irish Art 25 May 2015 - (click Date on Lot pages to add to your Calendar)

IMPORTANT IRISH ART ·

Orpen wrote me the following letter about the picture:

Dear Miss Cooper although I was too shy

to show you the picture I am really very

keen on it- what do you think of making it

into ‘Peter Pan’ just a little bit by bringing

the shadow along with you - it really was

the idea I had when I painted out the

white cloak – because your face became

what I thought you looked like in the part-

or what Peter ought to look like.

Yours ever, William Orpen

Just say ‘rubbish’ if you don’t like the idea.2”

Miss Cooper must have been pleased with

the nod to her stage role as the shadow is

visible, hovering against her right shoulder

next to the lighter coloured backdrop.

Orpen shows her sitting sideways, relaxed

with arms crossed and gazing into the distance beyond – perhaps emulating the expression of Peter’s aloofness

from this world, as observed by the critic Mr J. T. Grein, writing in The Sketch, as he reviewed Cooper’s revival

of the part.3 Her timelessly beautiful elfin face and long elegant neck are accentuated by her fashionable

flapper hair-style and a string of glittering beads, which add a hint of glamour to her modest attire.

The feeling of success around the painting was mutual as Orpen selected it to represent his oeuvre at the

Royal Academy exhibition in 1926. Two years previously another celebrity was also chosen by him for the RA

exhibition; Irish tenor Count John McCormack (Acquired by NGI 2009).

Fig. 4 William Orpen, Portrait of Count John McCormack (1884- 1945), Singer, 1923. (Image courtesy of the

National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin).

The differences in their depictions are dramatic and a clear reflection of his method of expression. Bruce

Arnold suggests, “Orpen’s view was that portrait painting, like conversation between two people, was a

method of expressing character on both sides...And in a successful portrait the result went outside mere

representation of the figure itself.”4 In his own words for Weekly Dispatch (1923) Orpen said,

“The character seems to have emanated from the person portrayed into the surrounding. It spreads a radiance

of personality over the entire canvas. You could not remove any part of it... [the portrait painter] must have in

his make-up a knowledge of life, a sympathy with human weakness, a good deal of the philosopher, and, most

essentially, a sense of humour. That is merely to say that an artist must be a man.”5