A total of 13 works on paper by Sir William Orpen from the collection of Mrs. Evelyn St. George will be offered at Christie’s, South Kensington on March 22. The works range in estimate from £1,000 to £6,000s and will be offered as part of the 20th Century British Art sale. Mrs. St. George, Orpen’s mistress and confidante, was the daughter of a wealthy New York banker. He painted her portrait in 1912.
Orpen was appointed an official war artist and many of his paintings hang in the Imperial War Museum Collection in London. Christmas Day at Howth (Lot 32), was made by Orpen either on the Christmas just before the outbreak of the war, or on the day of the famous Christmas Day Truce in 1914. He writes I’m just looking away across the sea and thinking of you all. In Happy Easter Vivien from Woppy (Lot 39) he writes to their four year old daughter wishing her a Happy Easter and draws a portrait of Vivien hatching out of an Egg. Vivien later inherited the works on paper and donated over 200 of them to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The 13 works on paper to be auctioned at Christie’s are the last of Vivien’s collection of her father’s letters. The drawing on the left depicts Orpen and Augustus John in a pub in their student days. John is depicted with his distinctive dandyish dress sense and beard with his arm around Orpen.