Yale Center for British Art, Bequest of Joseph F. McCrindle, Yale LLB 1948
Copyright Status:
Copyright Undetermined
Accession Number:
B2009.9.43
Gallery Label:
Born in Ireland, Sir William Orpen studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art before moving to England to train at the Slade School of Art from 1897 to 1899. He was appointed an official war artist in 1917 and, in 1919, worked as the official artist to the Versailles Peace Conference, producing the large group portrait The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors. Exhausted by the war, he turned increasingly to portraiture, becoming one of the most sought-after society portraitists of his time. The sitter here, Evelyn Marshall Field, was the New York-born wife of Marshall Field III, heir to the Chicago department store fortune. They met in London, married in Chicago in 1915, and divorced fifteen years later. At that time, she described herself and her husband to reporters as having “nothing in common. We are as far apart as the sun and the moon.” Gallery label for A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)
