Brief Biography- Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen was born in Stillorgan, Dublin, in 1878, the son of a solicitor. At eleven, he attended the Metropolitan School of Art until he was eighteen. Then, he entered the Slade School of Art in London in 1897 for two years, where he befriended Augustus John. He was a New English Art Club member in 1900, and he exhibited at the Royal Academy, where he was elected A.R.A in 1910 and R.A in 1919. Terborch, Van Eyck and Velasquez influenced some of his early works, and later Whistler influenced him. He taught at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art from 1908 to 1912, during which time he enjoyed a fruitful time of local painting besides doing portraits. He became a war artist during WW1, where he painted several pictures of the dead in trenches. One of his most famous paintings of the period is The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors. When the war ended, he spent the rest of his life in England. One of his most noted students was Patrick Tuohy. In 2018, the artist and musician Ronnie Woods unveiled a sculpture of William Orpen by Rowan Gillespie near his home in Stillorgan.