I have a book about Orpen - I am a big fan of his. If nobody else comes up with anything here, I will take photos of the pictures in the book and post them (maybe on a new thread?) in the next couple of days.

Fund a excellent web page featuring many artists in the US and Europe http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

type William Orpen in the search bar.

My intent was to get everyone to contribute their ideas on backgrounds--NOT to preach. As I said in the first post, I'm not trying to be the authority on backgrounds, or anything else for that matter. So, Sharon, please do not delete anything. I find it all fascinating and thought-provoking.

Two other by Orpen.
One with a light background and one dark.
I think that the choice of background is based on the needs of the painting, the background is there to emphasize the person.
If he had chosen the dark background behind the black suit it would have been a very dark painting.
For the same reason i think that Orpen left the lower painting in the vignette state and left some of the white canvas. That way he have the dark background to emphasize the head and the light canvas to secure that the general impression of the whole painting is not too dark.

Backgrounds
 

Allan, i hope you found the Orpen page ok and it is to your liking. Her is, I believe, a excellent example of background and subject unity.

Mischa,
I found it now, there are many wonderful paintings in a fine quality. Here is the the site: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca...:William_Orpen

Who is the artist of your woman portrait ? It looks a bit like Sanden's technique.

I have a number of portraits by this artist but for the life of me I cannot tell, by the signature, who it is. I think it is a living artist though and I do not think it is Sanden.

The style and signature look like Jamie McMahan. www.jamiemcmahan.com

Yes, in fact, it is on his "Individuals" page. (Sure is nice work)