Diana ‘Dickie’ Orpen (1914-2008) was a medical artist who worked at Hill End Hospital in St Albans during the Second World War alongside Rainsford Mowlem. Whilst there, she drew over 2,500 surgical illustrations, many of which can now be found in the BAPRAS archive.
Dickie Orpen was the youngest daughter of the renowned Irish painter Sir William Orpen, who had studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks. Her father initially prohibited both his daughters from pursuing art. However, when she was just 15 years old, he discovered some of Diana’s drawings and presented them to Tonks who, recognising talent, told him to ‘send her to the Slade on Monday.’
At the outset of the Second World War, Orpen worked as a Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD) nurse. In 1942, she reached out to Sir Harold Gillies, knowing of his working relationship with her tutor Tonks during the First World War, enquiring whether there might be a similar opportunity for her to contribute in this conflict. Gillies passed the correspondence to Rainsford Mowlem, who took her on shortly thereafter.
In addition to her pencil and pen illustrations, Orpen also demonstrated humour in creating numerous cartoons featuring colleagues. Most significantly she created works of pure art including a sizable pastel artwork entitled "Operating Theatre, Hill End, St Albans.", at present on loan to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. Following the war, Orpen made valuable artistic contributions to plastic surgery textbooks authored by John Barron and Magdy Saad.
many of the patient records from Hill End Hospital were destroyed, Orpen's illustrations have endured, standing as one of the few remaining records of the pioneering surgical procedures performed there.
Contributor: Alexander Baldwin