ORDE, Cuthbert Julian

1888 - 1968

Cuthbert Julian Orde was born at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk on 18 December 1888, son of Sir Julian Walter Orde (14 January 1861-17 June 1929) and his wife Alice Georgiana née Archdale (10 July 1861-31 December 1944), who married at St Mary's Church, Baldock, Hertfordshire on 7 July 1885. Julian was educated at Framlingham College, Suffolk 1902-1907. In response to the Motor Car Act 1903 raising the speed limit to 20 mph, in 1904 he went to the Isle of Man where, with permission of his cousin the Governor, started the TT races and was also an early member of the Royal Aero Club, he was also Secretary of the Automobile Car Club of Britain and Ireland from 1903, which became the Royal Automobile Club. Throughout his life he identified himself as an artist and in the early 1920s kept a studio in Paris. In his book 'Pilots of Fighter Command: Sixty-Four Portraits' Orde authored an essay explaining the circumstances of his portraits of Second World War pilots. Having been hired to produce illustrations of bomber stations in the summer of 1940, Air Commodore Harald Peake (1899-1978) from the Air Ministry, was impressed by the portraiture in Orde’s drawings. It was the height of the Battle of Britain when public attention was focused on fighter pilots and Peake asked Orde to make many portraits of the pilots and at the start of September he set to work. Orde was a portrait, landscape and still life painter who exhibited at the Alpine Club Gallery; Chenil Galleries; Goupil Gallery; Walker Art Gallery; Royal Academy; Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours; Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Paris Salon between 1921 and 1961 from 1 Durham Place, Chelsea, London. Orde married at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, London on 11 September 1916, Lady Eileen Wellesley (13 February 1887-31 October 1952), youngest daughter of Arthur Wellesley, 4th Duke of Wellington, and they had two daughters, and secondly at London in 1953, Alexandra Dalziel (1907-19 May 1997), former wife of Sir Alexander Davenport Kinloch, Bart. (1902-1982). An inaugural painter-member of the Society of Aviation Artists, formed in 1954, which is later known as the Guild of Aviation Artists. Cuthbert Julian Orde died at 1 Durham Place, London, S.W.3, on 19 December 1968. He signed his works 'Orde' in capital letters.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from Apsley House, Piccadilly, London
1921 32 Lieut. Col. Lord George Wellesley, M.C.
from 5 Avenue Studios, 76 Fulham Road, London
1930 290 Of the Sea: still life
         586 Mrs Edwin Orde
from 1 Durham Place, Chelsea
1931 436 Angela and Pauline, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Milburn
from 5 Avenue Studios, 76 Fulham Road, London
1933 237 Mrs. Evan Talbot
1936 90 Flowers: Flame and White
         277 Colonel Edmund Balfour
         434 Mrs. Robin Grant
1938 485 Lt. Col. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, M.C., M.P.
from 1 Durham Place, Chelsea
1943 323 Wing Commander Michael Robinson, D.S.O., D.F.C.
1944 459 Air-Marshal Sir George Slessor, K.C.B., D.S.O., M.C.
         470 The Hon. Mrs Benjamin Bathurst
1945 494 Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., D.S.O., D.F.C., killed in action 1944
1946 995 P.O., S. C. Creagh - chalk
1947 647 Towards Ashdown Forest
1953 705 Stick Hill in Winter
1960 423 The Road to Ojen in Andalucia
1961 565 Early Morning Light, Marbella, Southern Spain

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Works by This Artist