GRACE CAREFULLY CONSIDERED the old man in his shirt and cloth cap posing before them on a chair in the college’s largest first-floor art room, which caught the afternoon light. Today, instead of charcoal, she was using her soft-leaded pencil as she began to sketch him, shading his lined face and careworn eyes carefully, noting his work-worn hands, biting her lips as she tried to concentrate. William Orpen was taking them for life drawing again.
As they drew, Orpen often went around checking their work and giving his opinion. Some of her fellow students found him too direct but she valued his comments, be they good or bad.
Finishing quickly, Grace couldn’t resist sketching Orpen himself. A small, dark-haired man with strong features, he had a maturity beyond his years. He always looked very dapper in his expensive suits and shirts, with a cigarette in his hand. His classes were far more relaxed than those of other teachers, as he did not insist on silence and usually, as he smoked himself, he permitted his students to smoke too.
Orpen came over to study her pencil portrait of the old man and nodded approvingly, pointing out how well she had drawn his hands. Grace held her breath as Orpen suddenly turned over the pages of her sketchbook to look at the rest of her work. Embarrassed, she blushed as he studied the caricature of himself, cigarette in hand in front of an easel, that appeared on the next page.
‘So, Miss Gifford, that’s what I look like!’ He laughed.
‘I like doing caricatures,’ she admitted nervously. ‘It’s only a bit of fun.’
‘That depends on who is the subject,’ he teased, ‘and how well they respond to your wit!’
Grace had no idea what to say.
He took the pad and went through it, flicking over page after page. Most of their lecturers and tutors were there, faces elongated, noses enlarged, scrawny limbs now like sticks. There were also some of her friends.
Orpen laughed loudly on discovering a sketch she had made of William Butler Yeats.
‘You are a very talented young woman, Miss Gifford, with a rare gift for caricature.’
‘Thank you.’
She valued Orpen’s opinion. She was in her third year now and was like a sponge, absorbing what she could from him and his way of working. While some in the class felt afraid of and slightly intimidated by him, strangely she didn’t.
‘Ladies, next week we will be drawing a female nude,’ he informed them. ‘One of my beautiful young models from London is prepared to come over to Dublin to pose for us, so please ensure that you do not miss the classes.’
Everyone clapped and Grace smiled, knowing full well no one would dare miss it.
She had agreed to stay behind after class today, as Orpen wanted to do some sketches of her. He had asked to draw her a few times and, as she posed, she loved watching him work, seeing how a few simple lines built up to become a proper portrait. She couldn’t believe how quickly he worked and how well he captured her features. She sat quietly as the others filed out of the studio and he beckoned for her to sit where the model previously had. Grace felt embarrassed as some of her fellow students lingered to watch her.
‘Don’t mind them,’ he urged, concentrating hard as Grace tried to keep still. Her tawny hair fell in front of her face and she gently pushed it back off her shoulder.
‘You have wonderful hair, Miss Gifford.’
‘My sisters and I hate it,’ she confessed. ‘We were constantly teased about being carrot-heads when we were young.’
‘My wife was the same,’ he said, coming over to fix her hair slightly, ‘but I have always found this colour most agreeable and attractive. My daughter Kit fortunately has inherited her mother’s colouring.’
Grace was pleased with the compliment and held her gaze steady as he worked.
‘Now that’s enough for today. I have a meeting with an artist friend in Davy Byrne’s pub,’ he said, closing his large sketchbook. ‘But Miss Gifford, I wanted to ask if you would agree to sit for me in my studio, as I would really like to paint you for a special series that I am working on.’
Flattered, Grace didn’t quite know how to respond.
‘Obviously I will get proper permission from your parents. I will write to them personally with my request.’
‘Yes,’ beamed Grace, giving him her home address, ‘I would very much like that.’
Mother and Father pored over his letter.
‘He is a renowned portrait painter,’ sighed Mother. ‘To commission him for a portrait apparently costs a fortune. And yet here it is he wants to paint our Grace.’
‘Mother, please say yes!’ urged Grace excitedly.
‘The fellow has a terrible reputation,’ objected Father. ‘A roving eye for the women, apparently.’
‘All artists have an eye for beauty!’ exclaimed Mother, exasperated. ‘But you are right – Grace has her reputation to think of.’
‘Mr Orpen is married and lives in Howth with his family,’ she protested. ‘His studio is in the college. He is the only lecturer who is let keep a studio there. He goes back and forwards between classes every day as it’s only a few yards away from our art room.’
Her parents suddenly looked more assured.
‘You are very young, but perhaps Ada can chaperone you,’ proposed Mother with a smile. ‘I will write to Mr Orpen to give our permission and explain to him our condition that your sister must accompany you to these sittings.’
Grace sighed. Her older sister had decided to return to the School of Art this year to further her studies as she was finding it difficult to get work. Ada was forthright and opinionated, and as they cycled or travelled into town together she had made it very clear from the outset that she still considered Grace a child and had absolutely no intention of spending any time with her during college hours. Ada had her own group of friends, which suited Grace perfectly. But now she was suddenly dependent on her big sister acting as a chaperone if she wanted to visit Orpen’s studio. It was all so unfair.
‘Grace, what a pleasure.’ William Orpen was smoking a cigarette, the air heavy with the scent of it, as she introduced her sister. Light from the street flooded into the studio through the tall glass windows, with the street and treetops below.
Grace was dressed in a pretty white dress that he had requested she come in, but she had also brought along a pale-pink one of Muriel’s in case this one wasn’t suitable.
‘Ideal,’ he said as he picked out a selection of coloured beads, bangles and rings that he wanted her to wear. Then he turned his attention to her hair. It could be unruly at the best of times and Ada laughed as she helped him to pin it up into the style he wanted, with a bun on either side of Grace’s face.
Finally satisfied, Orpen posed her in a chair near the window with a pale curtain behind and a few flowers on her lap. Grace touched the scented pink roses as he sketched her quickly before taking his palette and knife, his oil paints and brushes and beginning to paint.
Ada watched him for about half an hour, then politely excused herself, saying she had a lesson but would return later.
As William Orpen worked, Grace endeavoured to keep perfectly still, silently taking in his array of drawings, sketches and paintings on easels and canvases littered around the room. Many were portraits of well-known figures – politicians and businessmen and their wives. In the far corner of the room a large canvas depicted a beautiful red-haired woman on a hill overlooking the sea. Grace, curious as to who the woman was, studied it more closely when she had finished posing.
‘That’s my wife,’ said Orpen proudly. ‘She’s also named Grace.’
‘It’s a wonderful painting,’ said Grace as Ada arrived, and Orpen made an arrangement for her to visit the studio again a few days later.
Over the following three weeks she continued to pose for him. She felt privileged to be able to see how he worked, watching enviously the way he mixed colours on his palette so easily and how, with what seemed like only a few simple touches of his knife and brushes, he managed to capture her in almost a pool of bright light. Orpen put her at her ease by telling her stories of his childhood in Stillorgan and of coming to study art here at the college when he was only thirteen.
Finally he was finished and Grace was able to stand in front of her portrait, which he entitled The Spirit of Young Ireland.
‘It is full of light,’ she said, studying it in detail. On canvas she looked different, mischievous and high-spirited, her dress made of light, attired with jewels and flowers. ‘You’ve made me seem far more attractive than I am.’
‘Miss Gifford, you embody the hope of a new generation ready to take on the world,’ he said with a smile, and he told her how he intended exhibiting the portrait in London.
Ada said very little when she saw the painting and Grace suspected she was rather jealous.
A photographer called at the studio as they were getting ready to leave and Orpen insisted that he take a photograph of Grace and himself together.
‘We are both artists,’ he said firmly, insisting that Grace hold his palette and brushes.
Nervous and rather overawed at being photographed with him, she did her best to gaze steadily at the camera and appear calm and poised.
Grace’s three years at the School of Art were coming to an end and Orpen, as one of her main tutors, suggested that she should consider applying for a place at the renowned Slade School of Art in London. Her work had changed and developed: she now mostly worked in black and white, creating strong, clear, simple images, designs and illustrations. Her hobby of drawing caricatures had become an art form she wanted to develop and use for print work.
‘At the Slade there are some of the finest art teachers in the world. I promise you, Miss Gifford, it’s a wonderful place for a young artist of your calibre to learn and to develop your techniques.’
Grace thanked him, but was very unsure about Father and Mother even entertaining a proposal that she study in London.
Attending the Nine Arts Ball in the Metropole Hotel at the end of her final term, Grace and her friends were dressed in Spanish costumes, with painted fans, mantillas, high combs in their hair and swirling red, black and white dresses. Other girls came as witches and demons, and her male classmates, dressed as hairy cavemen, dashing musketeers and Roman centurions, pulled them all up to dance as the band played its heart out. The noise level was high and, dancing with her friends, they all laughed and joked and made promises to keep in touch with each other as the music played on long into the night.
At the School of Art’s annual prizegiving Grace was proud to receive the award for ‘Drawing on the Blackboard and Model Drawing’ from Lady Aberdeen, who enquired about her plans, shook her hand and wished her well in her future art career.
‘What did you say to her?’ Mother asked.
‘I told her of my intention to study at London’s Slade School of Art,’ replied Grace defiantly.
Mother said nothing, refusing to be drawn into a discussion on the matter.
‘The Aberdeens will be kept busy this summer with King Edward VII’s visit here in July,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘He has been invited to visit the Irish International Exhibition which has just opened in Ballsbridge.’
Grace said no more, but was determined that she would somehow persuade her parents to let her attend the Slade. She had the long weeks of summer ahead to convince them.
Taking a final look around the art studios and lecture halls of the Metropolitan School of Art on her last day, and saying goodbye to her lecturers and all the friends she had made there, Grace felt close to tears.