UK Buyers |
Purchase the
Book
William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death
by Robert Upstone (Editor),Roy Foster (Editor),David
Fraser Jenkins (Editor)
This book, which accompanies a retrospective
exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London
in January 2005, reappraises an artist who,
at the time of his death in 1931, was probably
the best-known painter in Britain. The book
reveals the full variety of William Orpen's
work from his highly accomplished portraits,
his revitalization of the nude and the conversation
piece, to his extraordinary allegories and war
paintings. It analyzes the series of self-portraits,
many mocking his own character with a mixture
of humor and bitterness, that are a particular
feature of his oeuvre. His experiences as an
official war artist in France from 1917 to 1919
made him cynical of politicians. Although he
painted brilliant portraits of these very men,
and of generals and war heroes, he also produced
some bitter allegories of war. The war years
form the climax of both the book and the exhibition.
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US Buyers |
