2 OF 7

Group associated with the New English Art Club

2 of 7 portraits of Dugald Sutherland MacColl

by Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen
pencil, black chalk (or charcoal), pen, ink and watercolour, circa 1904
8 7/8 in. x 16 3/8 in. (225 mm x 415 mm) paper size
Purchased, 1995
Primary Collection
NPG 6345

Click on the links below to find out more:

Artistback to top

Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen (1878-1931), Painter. Artist associated with 29 portraits, Sitter in 27 portraits.

Sittersback to top

Frederick Brown (1851-1941), Painter and teacher. Sitter in 8 portraits. (In this portrait)
Charles Edward Conder (1868-1909), Painter. Sitter in 8 portraits, Artist of 2 portraits. (In this portrait)
Augustus Edwin John (1878-1961), Painter. Sitter associated with 86 portraits, Artist associated with 32 portraits.
Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), Painter, sculptor and etcher. Sitter in 30 portraits, Artist associated with 10 portraits. (In this portrait)
Dugald Sutherland MacColl (1859-1948), Critic, painter and gallery director. Sitter associated with 7 portraits.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Sculptor. Sitter in 10 portraits, Artist of 1 portrait.
Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945), Artist and teacher of art. Sitter in 24 portraits, Artist associated with 219 portraits.
Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942), Painter. Sitter in 13 portraits, Artist of 3 portraits.
Henry Tonks (1862-1937), Painter and teacher. Sitter associated with 15 portraits, Artist of 28 portraits.

This portraitback to top

The New English Art Club was an exhibiting society founded in 1886 by a group of artists sympathetic to the French avant garde and as an alternative exhibition venue to the more conservative Royal Academy. Although its importance had diminished by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the NEAC played a crucial role in British art for over twenty years. Born in Ireland, Orpen came to London in 1897 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art whose staff dominated the NEAC.
He himself first exhibited at the NEAC in 1899 and in the following years became one of its most prominent members. Probably executed several decades later, Orpen's superb drawing is apparently a satire on the most influential artists, teachers and critics of his early years or, more generally, on the French influence on British art as taught at the Slade and exhibited at the NEAC. Alphonse Legros, Slade Professor of Fine Art from 1875 to 1892, is seen with the sculptor Rodin leading members of the English avant garde along a windy cliff top.