Bea Orpen HRHA (7 March 1913 – 12 July 1980) was an Irish landscape and portrait painter and teacher.
[1][2] Beatrice Esther Orpen was born at Lisheens, Carrickmines, County Dublin, on 7 March 1913.
She was educated privately at home by a governess until age 13, when she attended the French School, Bray, and then Alexandra College, Dublin.
Orpen took private lessons on the fundamentals of colour and line under Lilian Davidson, going on to enrol in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) from 1932 to 1935.
On 5 July 1940, Orpen married Chalmers Edward FitzJohn ('Terry') Trench,[3] who was the founding secretary and former president of An Óige.
Whilst still studying in London, she received a number of commercial commissions to design posters, brochures, book jackets, and greeting cards.
Orpen returned to Ireland in 1939 and mounted her first solo show that October in the Country Shop, St Stephen's Green which was managed by Muriel Gahan.
Two retrospectives have been held of her work, in 1981 at the Gorry gallery, Dublin, and in 1995 at the Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda.