Up Close: William Orpen's Adrian Carton de Wiart

Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen (1878-1931), Wikipedia entry here, is perhaps best-known for his portrait work and Grear War related paintings.

Combining those was a series of sketch-portraits of senior British officers, some of which I featured here.  One of those portraits was of Adrian Carton de Wiart (1880-1963), an incredibly brave recipient of the Victoria Cross.  Wikipedia mentions: "He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War.  He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them.  Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, 'Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.'"

I also noted that portrait here.

In September of this year I once again found myself in London's National Portrait Gallery.  Instead of using my Nikon Coolpix that nearly always gave me trouble photographing paintings accurately, I now used my iPhone.  Three images I took of that 1919 portrait are shown below.

Gallery

The whole thing.  Better-framed images of it can be found elsewhere on the Internet.

The part dealing with the subject.  Orpen took care depicting the face, but things become sketchier farther down.

Closer view of the sketchy part.  For me, an interesting lesson on technique.