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Portraits of George Moore
"Sickert, Steer, Tonks—these, I think, were the friends he valued most. They were more or less coeval with him, and they were painters. It was with painters that he was happiest.
To them he could talk, with the certainty that they would sympathise, about painting, and about literature without being interrupted.
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They, on their side, revered him as the one mere critic with whom they could talk as with one of themselves.”
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— Max Beerbohm on George Moore and Painters
 William Rothenstein, portrait of his friend GM. Same collar & high-buttoned coat as other portraits from the 90s. 1896 (National Gallery of Ireland) |  Walter Sickert sketch, for Vanity Fair, 1897 (National Portrait Gallery) |  William Strang, frontispiece for Confessions of a Young Man (1889) |
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 Jacques Émile Blanche, portrait of his dear friend, 1887 (Musee de Rouen) |  Sketch by William Orpen, Moore, weary after a day's composition, 1903, (private collection) |  A deliberately cruel portrait in oil by Walter Sickert, 1891 (Tate Gallery) |
 Max Beerbohm, With cigar; one of 33 (Yes, thirty-three) Beerbohm cartoons of Moore, who inspired Max to ecstasies of caricature; Moore never complained. |  Max Beerbohm - W. B. Yeats (he was 6'3") introduces George Moore to the Queen of Fairies. Relative size, not just relative notions of reality, is the joke, 1904 (Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin) |  Mark Fisher was Moore's Dublin guest in June 1903. He came to Ireland to paint landscapes along side Moore's then beloved, Clara Christian, and during his stay, Fisher did this portrait, one of Moore's favourites (he used it three times as a frontispiece). |
 Mary Cassatt, sketches of Moore with beard, 1879 (sold at Sotheby's, NY, Nov. 2013). |  Édouard Manet, sketch of Moore at Café Nouvelles Athènes. 1 of 3 still existing Manets of GM. Here, same beard, same coat, as in sketch by Mary Cassatt. Swift handling of the beer glass tells you what Moore admired about Manet: personality, grace, confidence. 1879 (Metropolitan Museum, NYC) |  William Orpen, Cafe Royal (London). That's Moore heading out of the frame on the right, one of the best 'captures' of his gait & posture. Also represented are Gogarty, Nina Hamnett, Augustus John (with beard), William Nicholson, Orpen, James Pryde, and Alfred Rich. 1912 (Musée d'Orsay) |
 AE, sketch of George Moore, at the time of their bicycle trip to Newgrange, 1900 (HRHRC, Texas) |  John Butler Yeats, an affectionate & respectful 'friendship portrait.' The poet's father loved Moore, who he said looks on people as if he were a Martian. 1905 (National Gallery of Ireland) |  William Orpen's masterpiece, 'Homage to Manet.' Moore reading his 'Reminiscences of the French Impressionists,' beneath Manet's portrait of Eva Gonzales, while Wilson Steer, D. S. MacColl, Walter Sickert, Hugh Lane, and Henry Tonks listen. 1909 (Manchester Art Gallery) |
 An illustration by Henry Tonks for 'The Lovers of Orelay,' with Moore in a nightshirt; the manner is a deliberate spoof on Boucher. Mary Hutchinson posed for the bedded lady |  A conversation picture of a type frequently used by Lavery for the representation of married couples. Set in the Savoy Hotel, with Lady Cunard sharing a divan with GM (a scene he wished for, and she feared would compromise her reputation). "But we were only in a hotel lounge!" 1925 (Formerly owned by Rupert Hart-Davis) |  Frederick Leverton Harris. After an illness. 1920 (Fitzwilliam Museum) |
 Archibald Hartrick, mid 1930s, in memory of GM: 'I've had THOUSANDS of women' (A nostalgic boast: Not so many as that!) (NYPL) |  Henry Tonks, 'The Red Dressing Gown.' Brilliant technique, by master of the Slade School. 1920 (National Portrait Gallery) |  Henry Tonks, 'Saturday night in "The Vale"' Moore reading a manuscript, to John Hutchinson, an apparently dozing Wilson Steer, a sceptical Tonks, & a deliberately fascinated Mary Hutchinson (dear friend of TS Eliot). Seltzer bottle ('soda siphon') in the foreground 1929. (Commissioned by Orpen, left by him to the Tate Gallery) |
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