File talk:William Orpen - Sir Arthur Currie.jpg
Link to Unknown British Soldier in France
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@Waterborough: I'm presently looking to see whether there is a reliable source linking this Currie portrait as a study piece for Unknown Soldier AND the never complete one of Canadian Generals. Currie speaks of being sketched by Orpen in early 1918 and without any academic analyis it's not possible to know which was the source for Unknown Soldier. I'm having a good look however. --Labattblueboy (talk) 21:13, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Some starting material and leads:
- Canadian National Gallery Bulletin 6 (III:2), 1965, Orpen Portraits in the Canadian War Memorials Collection by Robert F. Wodehouse, Curator of War Art [1]. This follows a 1964 exhibit where the CWM works were shown together no link mentioned.
- William Orpen: An Onlooker in France by Robert Upstone. May contain something but I don't have a copy.
- Michel, Robert H (1994). "The General Portrayed: Sir Arthur Currie and his Painters". Fontanus 7.[2]. Analysis of all the paintings with Currie as subject.
All of the Orpen works in the Canadian War Memorial collection travelled in exhibitions following the war. I'm not sure if they were included in the exhibition in London in 1919 but they were certainly at the exhibitions in 1920 [3]. Consequently, Orpen would have been without this work during the development of Unknown British Soldier, the format with portraits not being clear until 1921. This being said, I now don't see how this could be the portrait source for Currie in the draft version.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:52, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
- Orpen started his work on To the Unknown British Soldier in France in 1921. He claimed he had completed thirty portraits before taking the radical decision to paint over the politicians and military leaders. In a letter to his mistress Mrs St George, written in 1921, Orpen sketched out the design of the original painting and identified a number of the twenty sitters, including Sir Arthur Currie. Source. There is only one painting of Currie. Because of this Orpen's statement must refer to this artwork. Waterborough (talk) 16:47, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
- Nothing had been painted in 1921, there are (as far as the secondary source state) only draft sketches for a format that included the portraits. This doesn't however resolve what Orpen would have used to as a study. There is for instance no (surviving) portraits painted of Clemenceau or Petain by Orpen so (absent of any source material saying otherwise) it's a stretch to say he only used painted portraits as his source material. If the IWM site is the only citation presented I will remain opposed to making the link Unknown British Soldier as it does not link this painting to the work. There needs to be a source which conclusively links the two because at present source material (I can find) only links this work to a collective painting of Canadian generals; if it's both a source needs to be able to say so. --Labattblueboy (talk) 20:01, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, but you are using wrong arguments. Orpen like any portrait painter developed an idea of a person, in pencil or in oil, and he used this idea sometimes in several group portraits, for example Wilson, Balfour and Botha in The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors and A Peace Conference at the Quai d'Orsay. Of course there have been sketches of Clemenceau and Petain, but they have gone away. Because this painting of Currie is the only one, Orpen certainly would have used the idea of it in his painting To the Unknown British Soldier in France. So i have got a source and good reasons, but i'm tired of arguing. Waterborough (talk) 16:49, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
- But you don't have a source, that's the issue. The IWM website saying Currie was to be in a painting is not a same as a source saying this painting is tied to Unknown British Soldier. As far as I can tell, no one has made that claim. I CAN show source material that links this painting to another group work; if the same is true for Unknown British Soldier we would expect someone to say so. I must admit I like the theory, but it's just a theory. As noted previously Orpen sat Currie on more than one occasion, like others in Unknown British Soldier we don't know whether other supporting works were lost or destroyed. If we have a source that says Orpen starting painting Unknown British Soldier in 1919 then I'm entirely on board with making an asusmed link. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see any indication that Orpen even started on Unknown British Soldier until 1921. If he didn't start the portrait version of Unknown British Soldier by late 1919 than it becomes highly questionable that this work would have been a study as by January 1920 (possibly earlier but finding 100 year old exhibition data is tricky) this painting was on exhibition in North America and no longer in Orpen's posession.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, but you are using wrong arguments. Orpen like any portrait painter developed an idea of a person, in pencil or in oil, and he used this idea sometimes in several group portraits, for example Wilson, Balfour and Botha in The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors and A Peace Conference at the Quai d'Orsay. Of course there have been sketches of Clemenceau and Petain, but they have gone away. Because this painting of Currie is the only one, Orpen certainly would have used the idea of it in his painting To the Unknown British Soldier in France. So i have got a source and good reasons, but i'm tired of arguing. Waterborough (talk) 16:49, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
- Nothing had been painted in 1921, there are (as far as the secondary source state) only draft sketches for a format that included the portraits. This doesn't however resolve what Orpen would have used to as a study. There is for instance no (surviving) portraits painted of Clemenceau or Petain by Orpen so (absent of any source material saying otherwise) it's a stretch to say he only used painted portraits as his source material. If the IWM site is the only citation presented I will remain opposed to making the link Unknown British Soldier as it does not link this painting to the work. There needs to be a source which conclusively links the two because at present source material (I can find) only links this work to a collective painting of Canadian generals; if it's both a source needs to be able to say so. --Labattblueboy (talk) 20:01, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
