FINE ART : PAINTINGS

Title: Resting (1905)
Object Name: Painting
Maker: Orpen, Sir William 1878-1931 (Primary maker)
Orpen, Sir William 1878-1931 (artist)
Date Made: 1905
1905
Description: The model used for Resting was one of Orpen’s favourites, a young washerwoman called Lottie Stafford who lived in a decrepit street called Paradise Walk. The bored resignation of the young washerwoman, whose voluptuous beauty is unnoticed in the squalid setting of the steamy laundry, is reminiscent of the displaced young women who appear in Manet’s bars and music halls. A precocious painter and a brilliant draughtsman, Orpen trained at the Metropolitan School in Dublin and, from 1897, at the Slade School in London and was noted for the assured fluency of his technique. Orpen was the most successful portraitist of his generation and a powerful war artist, producing haunting and memorable images of the conflict. After 1902 he returned to Dublin each year to teach at the Metropolitan School, where he influenced a generation of young Irish painters.
Materials: oil on canvas
Catalogue Number: BELUM.U114
Copyright: National Museums NI

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