William Orpen

William Orpen was born in November 1878 at Oriel, a large Stillorgan house where his painter parents gave him rooms full of light and his brother Richard drew buildings for fun. He may have stood at a kitchen window watching carriage wheels bite the lane, learning that a line must move before it becomes true. That child inside the painter never left; decades later he still drew the living world as if it had just spoken to him.