In 1974 Vivien Graves, daughter of William Orpen (1878-1931) and Evelyn St George (1870-1938), donated three bound albums to the National Gallery of Ireland. Contained between their pages were approximately 365 items, the majority of which were illustrated letters to Mrs St George from her lover, the artist William Orpen.1 The remainder constituted an intriguing assortment of drawings and fragments ranging from detailed and highly finished pencil and ink drawings to preparatory sketches and studies for some of Orpen’s most well- known paintings. Vivien received the letters from her mother in 1924, just three years after Mrs St George and William Orpen decided ‘never to see or communicate with each other again.’2 When leafing through the letters and other items in the albums, one is presented with a very intimate perspective on the artist’s personal life and immediately in the case of Orpen, one cannot help but smile. Orpen’s keen but unusual sense of humour is expressed vigorously throughout the letters, usually in spontaneous sketches scribbled down among the words of a letter or in humorous drawings illustrating events in the day-to-day life of the artist. Similar to his paintings, the dominant form of expression throughout the collection is self-portraiture. The self-portrait sketches, which embellish these letters meant solely for the eyes of Mrs St George, are usually more self-mocking than flattering and add to the character of the collection. Unfortunately, many of the letters in the collection are incomplete. Some miss entire pages but more obviously and teasingly a great deal of the letters have been cropped, often leaving a drawing surrounded by words and unintelligible phrases.3 From what remains of the text it would be difficult to describe the items as love letters. Usually they feature discussions on anything from new commissions to social gossip. Orpen left school at the age of thirteen to begin studying at the Metropolitan School of Art and so throughout his life, was very aware of his inability to articulate and express himself sufficiently through words. His letters display an unstructured writing style and are awash with unfinished sentences and incorrect spelling, which he often apologises for. The drawings that adorn the letters could not be more different. Executed by an artist known for his exceptional abilities as a draughtsman, the letters demonstrate Orpen’s brilliant facility for capturing likeness and action with the stroke of a pen. The drawings are often positioned humorously illustrating the text or more interestingly, Orpen uses drawing when he is unable to express his feelings sufficiently in words. In one example, which he begins: ‘Talk about a romantic journey, it’s nothing to coming to the corner here and eating alone, would that I had the art of expression on paper of your friend Mr. Brind. I have been green with envy since I read it.’4 Below this is a sketch of Orpen sitting alone and forlorn at his and Mrs St George’s usual table in the corner of the famous Dublin restaurant, Jammets. Sitting opposite is a delicate outline of dots representing the figure of the woman he longs to be with. (Fig. 1) Orpen was introduced to Mrs St George by his mother Annie. Annie had been instrumental in connecting her son with many of his influential contemporaries 5 and it was through her that Orpen met the woman who was to have the most profound influence on both his career and personal life. Evelyn was the daughter of the renowned Wall Street banker George F Baker and it came as a surprise, particularly to her father, when in 1891 she decided to marry an Irish land agent, Howard Bligh St George. They settled down in the small town of Screebe, Connemara but Evelyn became tired of life in the west of Ireland and in 1905 relocated with her family to a new home at Clonsilla Lodge on the outskirts of Dublin. Annie Orpen was a cousin of Howard and she introduced her son to the St Georges with the idea of attracting portrait commissions. In the summer of 1906 it was decided that Orpen would paint two full-length portraits of Howard and Evelyn.6 Orpen’s relationship with Mrs St George thus began as a formal business encounter but, as Bruce Arnold suggests, their paths crossed during an uncertain phase in both their lives ‘and there was a mild but significant collision’.7 In 1906 Orpen was twenty-eight years old. He was beginning to make a name for himself not only as an important young artist in Britain and Ireland,8 but also as a part-time lecturer for the summer courses at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin.9 Orpen travelled to Dublin alone while his wife Grace (whom he married in 1901) and children remained at their home in London. Orpen was receiving numerous commissions from Irish patrons and over time his trips to Ireland and away from his wife became more frequent and prolonged. These absences put a strain on their relationship and by ‘1906 the basis of a split existed.’10 Later that year Orpen was in Huddersfield to paint Miss Lumb of Huddersfield (1906). The illustrated letter he sent Mrs St George on this occasion is one of the earliest in the NGI collection. In it he pathetically declares that he is ‘in the last state of despair’. It is interesting that in this state it is to Mrs St George that he turns, proclaiming that ‘a letter [from her] will cheer me up’. On the reverse is a dramatic sketch in ink and pencil. Orpen cries out amid a gloomy landscape of Huddersfield, which symbolises the state of mind that he begs to be saved from.11 (Fig. 2) As Orpen was a distant relative, Mrs St George’s family and friends ‘found no cause for gossip in their early relationship,… Woppy was accepted as one of the family’.12 Orpen and Mrs St George at first carried out their love affair in secret. In 1907 Mrs St George invited Orpen to Screebe Lodge, the St George holiday home, where she commissioned him to paint a portrait of her daughter Gardenia. Orpen returned subsequently in 1908 and 1909 to paint two more portraits of Gardenia and in 1910, also at Screebe, he painted Gardenia on a Donkey. When they were apart Orpen wrote frequently to Mrs St George and over time their relationship blossomed. One letter shows an early idea for Gardenia on a Donkey, in which she sits on the donkey’s back on the bank of a river. The river divides the picture in two as the top half of the composition is reflected in it. Next to the picture Orpen writes with typical wit, ‘Isn’t this exactly what you mean – quite original - hang the picture up which ever way you like’.13 The letter reveals early signs of Orpen’s habit of sharing his ideas with Mrs St George and it is clear from many of his letters that he greatly valued both her creative involvement and her criticisms of his work. Referring to a portrait he was painting of Gardenia that he felt Mrs St George would not like, he wrote, rather than ‘be kind and say nothing…Let me have it heavy and hard it will do me good.’14 He also sent her sketches of oil paintings that he was currently working on for her appraisal. Some were sent as letters, including a series with alternative preliminary ideas for the composition of the oil painting The Café Royal (1912), in which he points out details and ideas he is working on and another of Myself and Cupid (1910). (Fig.3) Others seem to have been scribbled down onto whatever paper was to hand. A sketch of the Western Wedding (1914), for example, covers the back of a Berkley Hotel menu card. Judging by the array of headed paper that exists in the collection it would seem that wherever Orpen went he was continually developing ideas and sharing them with Mrs St George. This collaborative process culminated in Orpen’s monumental portrait of her, Mrs St George (1914). (Fig. 4) In a letter from Dublin, Orpen wrote, ‘Think out a great scheme for me and let it be a joint picture’. Their collaboration was a triumph and resulted in what Orpen considered his masterpiece. However, when he heard later that Mrs St George had cut about 20 inches from the bottom of the painting as she considered it too long, he was shocked and felt that the overall proportions of the painting had been ruined. Orpen was furious and in true character expressed his feelings visually. He sent a sketch of himself reading her letter, his body contorted with anger. The speech bubble reads, ‘Chopping it off and letting it go at that!!!!! my masterpiece’.15 A touching detail to the drawing are the shackles around Orpen’s feet, illustrating his helplessness in the situation. In 1909 Orpen decided to take a house at Howth in which to spend the summer holidays with his wife and three daughters. This was ‘a new move that I’m not very keen on’,16 he admitted in a letter to Mrs St George, but hoped that it might turn out for the best. The summers at Howth turned out to be some of the happiest times Orpen spent with his children and they returned there annually until 1915. He began to paint out of doors, producing sun-drenched canvases very different in style to his other works of the period. He painted various subjects but primarily concentrated on members of his family enjoying the summers on the beaches and cliffs around Howth. Curiously, Orpen chose to share these happy days with Mrs St George. He wrote to her of having tremendous energy and getting up at four in the morning to pick mushrooms. Quick sketches show him surrounded by children on the beach, marching across the grass with his accoutrements tied to his back or sketching while perched on the edge of a dangerous over hang (Fig. 5). He even sent her a humorous illustration of the time his canvas and easel fell into the water and he ‘had to go after them’.17 In the summer of 1912, taking Mrs St George’s advice,18 he painted a large portrait of his parents. He then wrote to her of the many frustrations this presented, particularly painting his father, Arthur Herbert Orpen. In one letter he complained that ‘Father has been sitting today in a very bad pair of trousers and not much better boots.’19 In another there is a sketch of Orpen and his father, who cuts a formidable figure, standing in front of the unfinished painting. Orpen, shoulders hunched, tries to answer his father’s many questions regarding, ‘why I do this and that’20 to the painting. (Fig. 6) Under the most amusing of the drawings, which shows Orpen bent with frustration, he writes, ‘This is exactly how I feel I look every afternoon when I stop from mother and fathers picture – It’s not pretty I admit ’.21 It is also clear from his letters how greatly he missed Mrs St George during those summer days. She was often on holidays in Screebe and Orpen longed to be with her. He begins one letter, ‘My Dear Mrs St George I got your letter at the cliffs this morning you are certainly the most wonderful thing that ever happened’22. But even more touching are drawings that convey his emotions far more effectively. In one he appears as a lonely figure, standing on the cliff edge looking into the distance. The inscription below reads simply, ‘Looking westward’23 (Fig.7). In another with a humorous edge tears flood from his eyes, above the caption, ‘the sea is rising’.24 Vivien Graves was born on the first of January 1912. At the time it was uncertain whether she was in fact Orpen’s child, but Orpen believed she was and loved her dearly. In the letter collection his feelings for Vivien are particularly evident in the series of delicate pencil drawings of her as a baby. Perhaps the most endearing however, is a small fragment of a letter with merely a thumbnail size sketch and a few words that escaped cropping. The drawing is of a baby’s head with hunched shoulders which amusingly, bears a slight resemblance to Orpen. Of the few words remaining, one can make out, ‘the likeness….Undisputable’.25 Before Vivien’s first birthday the St Georges left Ireland for good and moved to England. Mrs St George took a new apartment at 25 Berkley Square while Howard resided outside London. This allowed Orpen and Mrs St George freedom to see each other more often and so between 1912 and 1915 they socialized regularly. Orpen was very happy and some of the most light-hearted letters in the collection date from this period. Orpen became very aware of their difference in height and for amusement exaggerated it in his drawings to her. In one sketch in which the couple roller skate with arms linked, Orpen’s feet leave the ground, as he peers up to her and says, ‘I do love skating’.26 (Fig. 8) Their physical contrast did not go unnoticed in English society and they became known as ‘Jack and the Bean Stalk’.27 Orpen sent Mrs St George a picture of them at lunch in the Berkley Hotel in which, she’s wearing an enormous feathered hat, she again towers above him (Fig. 9). In 1915, however, events occurred that would alter the stability of their relationship. When Gardenia discovered her mother’s relationship with Orpen she was deeply upset.28 She told her grandfather, who then put pressure on Mrs St George to end the relationship. Mrs St George did not obey her father’s wishes, but on 9 December 1915, Orpen sent an endearing sketch to Mrs St George of a figure dressed in an over-sized soldiers uniform, with the inscription, ‘England’s called her last resources little Orpen’s joined the forces’29 (Fig. 10). Orpen had no military background and approached the war in relative innocence. In March 1916 he was commissioned to Kensington Barracks, an event he conveyed to Mrs St George with his usual sense of humour. He sent her an amusing sketch of his medical examination at the War Office (Fig. 11) and another of a fearsome looking superior officer asking him, ‘What can you do?’. ‘Nothing Sir’, Orpen replied, ‘I s’truth I’m simple’.30 In February 1917 Orpen was appointed official war artist and promoted to the rank of Major. That Easter he was sent to France and by mid April was at the Front. He wrote, ‘I shall never forget my first sight of the Somme battlefields…. horrible and terrible, but with a noble dignity of its own.’31 He was in awe of the massive scale of the war but also understood ‘a little bit’ the plight of the individual soldiers.32 He sent Mrs St George pictures of soldiers hiding in trenches while planes soared overhead. In one letter he complains of the cold and of receiving ‘no letters to cheer me up’.33 There are some letters from the war in which Orpen’s sense of humour still manages to present itself. In 1917, while suffering from a severe case of blood poisoning, he wrote to Mrs St George from hospital complaining that ‘they can’t find any pyjamas to fit the miserable little Woppy’. He depicts this in a humourous sketch of himself walking around the isolation ward in a very large pair of pyjamas, which he points out ‘makes some of the miserables in the place laugh’.34 It is undeniable, however, that Orpen’s time at war affected him greatly and his letters to Mrs St George to an extent chart his personal journey. It is particularly striking that many of the letters he sent during and after the war are characterised by long segments of densely packed text which rarely display the drawings and sketches that brought to life previous letters. Orpen was a prolific letter writer and the collection of letters and fragments he sent to Mrs St George provide insight into both his individualistic approach to letter writing and the development of his love affair with her. The combination of text with illustration exhibited an unusual sense of humour that appealed to Mrs St George, allowing Orpen to indulge his obsession with his ugliness, short stature and social ineptitude. Perhaps Orpen’s manner is best explained in a letter in which there is an amusing sketch of him dressed as a fat policeman, under which he writes, ‘it is much nicer to make a fool of yourself when you mean to than when you don’t.’35 Donal Maguire is the Assistant at the Centre for the Study of Irish Art in the National Gallery of Ireland I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Anne Hodge and Dr Brendan Rooney William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death Millennium Wing 1 June - 28 August 2005 ‘Yours very sincerely, William Orpen’, Orpen’s Illustrated Letters to Mrs St George, National Gallery of Ireland, Print Gallery 21 May - 14 August 2005 1 National Gallery of Ireland Collection, Cat. 7830. For reasons of conservation the collection has been removed from their original albums. 2 Graves, Vivien, Explanatory Notes for Mr George Robinson, NGI Records, Cat. 7830. 3 The Letters may have been cropped to place more importance on the items as drawings rather than as letters or perhaps because the content of the letters was considered too personal or even controversial to leave intact. 4 Orpen’s Illustrated Letters to Mrs St George, National Gallery of Ireland Collection, Cat. 7830.100 (All subsequent references to this collection will be by catalogue number only) 5 Lady Gregory and her nephew Hugh Lane were her distant relatives. 6 Arnold, Bruce, Orpen Mirror to an Age, (Jonathon Cape, 1980), p.184 7 ibid, p.185 8 In 1904 he became an Associate of the RHA and in 1907 a full member. 9 Orpen began to teach at the Metropolitan School of Art in 1902 and by 1906 it had become established practice for him to make twice – yearly teaching visits to Ireland usually in May or June (Arnold, op. cit, p.123). 10 Arnold, op. cit, p.182 11 NGI, 7830.1 12 Graves, op. cit 13 NGI 7830.18 14 NGI 7830.46 15 NGI 7830.119 16 NGI 7830.84 17 NGI 7830.86 18 NGI 7830.235 19 NGI 7830.36 20 NGI 7830.41 21 NGI 7830.40 22 NGI 7830.8 23 NGI 7830.92 24 NGI 7830.83 25 NGI 7830.72 26 NGI 7830.64 27 Arnold, op. cit, 1980, p. 281 28 Arnold, op. cit, p. 300 28 NGI 7830.300 29 NGI 7830.303 30 Orpen, William, An Onlooker in France, (Parkgate, 1996), p. 14 32 ibid, p. 14 33 NGI 7830.321 34 NGI 7830.328 25 NGI 7830.304