Bombarded by artillery, dodging bullets, crawling through trenches in
the Somme, Major William Orpen, society portrait painter, witnesses the
grim reality of conflict as he paints the war. This is his story.
During World War I, Major William Orpen, a highly successful commercial
painter in Ireland and the UK, takes up a posting as official British
war artist. Full of high hopes he sets off to the front with a
Rolls-Royce and a driver.
But nothing in his privileged life prepared him for the horrors he
encounters. Based in Amiens, he is initially unable to capture on canvas
the sights that haunt him, but eventually his inspired output becomes
prolific - Tommies in rat-infested, water-sodden trenches; men charging
across the tortured earth with fixed bayonets; generals in luxurious
quarters; nurses ministering gently to the wounded in the hell-hole
hospitals.
Commissioned to paint the Paris Peace Conference he settles in Paris
with Yvonne, his model and muse. His epic, To the Unknown British
Soldier in France, is hailed by some as 'symbolic'; but by others as a
'blasphemous disgrace'.
Disheartened at the ending of the war, he is consumed by its futility
and what he sees as the fighting men's betrayal by the politicians. At
war with himself, he divides his time between Paris and London but
suffers from depression and ill health. Alienated from his family, he
dies in 1931 of alcohol-related complications.
This illustrated biographical novel - featuring dozens of Orpen's
paintings and drawings - will enthrall anyone interested in the brutal
reality of World War I, and help us to appreciate one artist's
remarkable personal and creative journey.
