The Court Martial of Billy Orps

In October of 2009, a diminutive, white-haired gentleman walked into the oversized halls of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, England, carrying a large painting under his arm.  The picture, which the gentleman had inherited from his uncle, had hung on the living room wall of his modest home for many years, but there was still much mystery surrounding the work.  He knew that the painting was a copy - in fact, it said so on the back of the canvas - and he knew the original was part of the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.  But the painting in his possession was just too skillfully done to dismiss it as a mere reproduction, and he wondered if the copyist might be identified, and if his painting had any value.  On that particular autumn day, the painting's owner hoped to get his answers by speaking to an appraiser from the hit BBC television program, Antiques Roadshow, which was filming an episode at the college.

After confirming that the painting was indeed a copy, appraiser Rupert Maas went on to disclose the true story of the picture, and to rekindle interest in a saga that had once appeared in newspapers around the world, but that most of the art world had since forgotten.

When Great Britain entered World War I by declaring war on Germany, there were many young men in England eager to do their part for the Allied forces, among them a thirty-six year-old, gifted draftsman and painter called Billy Orps.  A graduate of London's famous Slade School of Fine Art, Orps had been making a good income and good connections as a portraitist to high society when he volunteered for the Army Service Corps, a surprising decision for a man of whom his friends considered neither particularly political nor patriotic.  Relying on the aid of a then-current sitter, Sir John Stephen Cowans, the Quarter-Master General to the Forces, Orps was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and installed in the Adjutant's office at Kensington Barracks.

Orps was miserable.  Having attained his position through connections rather than through training, he was neither well-suited to a be a soldier nor a clerk.  Though considered a hard-worker, he spent much of his time in the office drawing caricatures, mostly of himself, which he sent to his patrons back in London.  In one infamous cartoon, he drew himself being dressed-down by a Colonel who shouts, "What can you do?  What can you do?" To which the dejected figure of Billy replies, "Nothing, Sir, I'm an artist."¹

When an opportunity to leave Kensington presented itself to Orps, he once again used his society contacts to negotiate his way through the military.  With the help of General Cowans, and that of Field-Marshall Douglas Haig, a friend of one of Orps' patrons, Billy was made an official war artist.  In the space of a single day, Orps was promoted to the rank of Major, and was sent to France, where he was given a Rolls-Royce, a chauffeur, and a rare, open-ended ticket to remain overseas for as long as he wished.²

In 1917, British war artists were under the auspices of the Department of Information, which in France meant that Orps had to report to Major A. N. Lee, whose responsibility it was to censor all artworks and photographs being sent back to England.  Orps had arrived in the spring, and by the end of summer, his conspicuous lack of productivity attracted the attention of Major Lee, who reported the matter to his own superior, Colonel A. H. Hutton-Wilson.  Hutton-Wilson was livid, and admonished Orps for spending his time in France simply "looking round,"³ and demanded that the artist report to him directly and regularly.  Balking at these orders and at the idea he would have to travel 110 miles roundtrip each week to show the Colonel his progress, Orps went to Field-Marshall Haig to register his dissatisfaction with the new arrangement.  Within weeks, Lee had been reprimanded, Hutton-Wilson had been removed from his post, and Orps was on his way to General Headquarters to paint the Field-Marshall's portrait.

Haig was, of course, a busy man, with little time to sit still and have his picture painted.  During a brief moment when Orps was given access to the Field-Marshall, Haig made a suggestion to the painter which Orps was to take to heart.  "Why waste your time painting me?" asked the Field-Marshall.  "Go and paint the men.  They're the fellows who are saving the world, and they're getting killed everyday."⁴

Essentially free from the scrutiny of Major Lee, Orps followed Haig's advice and travelled to the front lines to paint the enlisted men.  It was a decision which would forever change his life.

If Orps had any plans of merely recording the war, those ideas were dashed upon his reaching the battlefront.  He was, of course, a portraitist, and as such, also a humanist - a lover of life and of people.  His focus, therefore, was always personal.  Rather than paint the army, he painted the soldier;  the smaller tragedies instead of the greater good;  the vulnerabilities and frailties of the individual rather than the strength of a nation.  And with so many particular stories to tell, Orps soon amassed a large portfolio full of drawings, paintings, and watercolors depicting the intimate travails and horrors of war.

Towards the end of 1917, it was suggested that an exhibit of Orps' work be shown in London, and still in the midst of battle, Orps began painting additional works to send back to England.  It was during these preparations that Orps once again found himself the focus of Major A. N. Lee, and soon thereafter, at the center of a potential, international scandal.

As a prolific painter, Orps should have been the ideal choice as an official war artist, but his overwhelming compulsion to paint almost proved to be his downfall.  His artworks, which were to be sent back to Agnew's Gallery in Bond Street for the show War, still had to be cleared by the Department of Information before leaving France.  If Orps had limited his paintings to wartime subjects, this would not have presented a problem, but among the body of paintings he had created in France was a private work that should not have been included;  it was a portrait of Orps' mistress, which the artist had named, mischievously, The Spy, in hopes that the title might somehow allow the painting to pass by the censor and be included in the show.

Rather than pass unnoticed through Major Lee's office, however, a painting with the provocative title, The Spy, raised red flags throughout the Department of Information.  In the wake of the executions of Edith Cavell, a nurse who had helped Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium, and Mata Hari, the exotic dancer accused of committing espionage on behalf of Germany, the issue of publicly disclosing the identities of spies was a particularly sensitive issue for the British Government.  Orps was immediately recalled to London to explain himself, and to face the possibilities of a court martial and charges of treason.

Back in London, Orps stood by the backstory he had concocted for his painting.  That tale, as printed in the May 11, 1919 issue of The New York Times went as follows:

No one in the War Office believed Orps' fiction, especially when faced with the evidence that, after the supposed event, witnesses had seen the woman, identified as Yvonne Aubicq - daughter of the Mayor of Lille - walking about Paris on the artist's arm.  Orps was forced to retract his story, and change the title of the painting to The Refugee. But, once again, thanks to politically powerful friends, including the Minister of Information, Lord Beaverbrook - who had organized the exhibit of War at Agnew's - Orps escaped any repercussions from his actions, that is, save one;  he was banned from returning to France.

Never one to take authority too seriously, however, Orps snuck back to General Headquarters in Montreuil, seated himself in the Intelligence office, and in the presence of Major Lee, made telephone arrangements to dine with Field-Marshall Haig that evening.  Seeing he was beaten, Lee decided not pursue any penalties against the artist, and, surprisingly, in time, the two men became great friends.

In June of 1918, it was announced that Orps, who had every right to privately sell the work he created as a war artist, had donated "all the studies, drawings, portraits and canvases"⁶ done in France (including any finished works that had yet to be done from his sketches) to the British government, with the provision that the collection was kept intact.  For his services to the war effort and the nation, Billy Orps, perhaps better known as Irishman William Orpen, was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

The War had changed Orpen.  When peace was finally declared, he was commissioned to paint the Peace Conference, but he never finished the series of paintings he intended in commemoration of the event.  He grew disgusted with the politicians and diplomats - whom he termed "frocks"⁷ - who laughed and patted each other on the back while signing the peace treaty, and did so without showing any honor for the soldiers who actually fought the battles.  He returned to London, where he became an ever-more-important portrait painter, earning the modern-equivalent of more than a million dollars per year for his efforts.  But unable to forget the horrors he had seen, and possibly suffering the effects of syphilis contracted during his time in France, Orpen turned increasingly to alcohol to numb his senses.  In failing health, he was committed to a nursing home in London, and on September 29, 1931, he passed away, aged only 53 years.

The portrait which was brought to The Antiques Roadshow in 2009 was a copy of Sir William Orpen's The Refugee, the infamous painting originally titled The Spy.  What was most surprising about the copy, was that it was done by Orpen himself.  According to appraiser Rupert Maas' research, personal letters to Lord Beaverbrook from Orpen reveal the existence of the second version, painted in 1920, as a "thank you" to the Baron for saving the artist from disciplinary action in 1917.  Maas considered the latter version to be warmer and more desirable than the original, and estimated the portrait's value to be £250,000, making it one of the most valuable paintings yet discovered by the television program.⁸