Dora Gordine

Dora Gordine (8 June 1895 – 29 December 1991) was an Estonian Jewish Modernist figurative and portraitist sculptor. Her early career was influenced by the Noor Eesti (‘Young Estonia’) group of artists who favoured Art Nouveau. She moved to Paris and on her third marriage, to Hon. Richard Hare (1907–66), her career expanded to the extent that some critics regarded her as amongst the finest sculptors of her generation.^[1] She specialized in portrait sculptures attracting international admirers from the political, social, artistic, literary and theatrical worlds. Her legacy also includes a number of public space pieces. Her latter career was not as prolific or as fêted and Gordine was relatively unknown at the time of her death. Major exhibitions in London in 2006 and 2009 have revived her standing and her former home is now a museum.^[2]

Dora Gordine's childhood has not been well documented. There is confusion over her date of birth with various dates 1895 (likely), 1898 and 1906 mentioned. She was the youngest of four children born to Morduch ("Mark") Gordin and Emma Ester Schepshelewitch, both Russian Jews, in Liepāja, Latvia, at a time when it was still part of the Russian Empire. Two of her siblings, Nikolai and Anna, died at the hands of the Nazis in Tallinn, Estonia in 1941. Another brother, Leopold, moved to London, where he lived until his death. The Gordin family evidently belonged to a comfortable middle class. There was money available to pay Gordine's elder brother, Leopold, to study engineering at Edinburgh University. Later, it seems that Gordine's father was also prepared to pay for Gordine's elder sister, Anna, to study at one of Tallinn's leading art schools.^[3][4]

En 1912, la familia Gordin se mudó a Tallin, Estonia . Es evidente que el enfoque de Gordin hacia la escultura estuvo considerablemente influenciado por el ejemplo de Noor Eesti («Joven Estonia»), un grupo de artistas que defendieron el Art Nouveau en el país antes de la Primera Guerra Mundial. ^{[ 5 ]} Exhibió esculturas de bronce en Tallin en 1917, 1920 y 1921. En otoño de 1924, viajó a París para estudiar civilización francesa, profundizando así sus conocimientos sobre la práctica escultórica francesa contemporánea. Allí, rodeada de galerías y salones, «sintió instintivamente una correlación entre los ritmos de la música y la escultura» y desarrolló su visión escultórica. Gordin agalizó su apellido añadiéndole una «e», quizás para que sonara más ruso, y siempre negó o desvió las insinuaciones de que fuera judía . ^{[ 6 ] [ 7 ]}

En 1925 trabajó como pintora en un mural para el Pabellón Británico en la Exposición Internacional de Artes Decorativas e Industriales Modernas de París. Esto le permitió fundir un bronce para exhibirlo en la Beaux Arts Society. Al año siguiente fue invitada a exponer en el Salón de las Tullerías, donde su diseño de la cabeza y el torso de un filósofo chino recibió críticas entusiastas; The Straits Times (1932) escribió: «Como Byron, una mañana Dora Gordine despertó famosa». Entre 1929 y 1935 esculpió bronces para el Ayuntamiento de Singapur . Las Galerías Leicester de Londres presentaron la escultura de Gordine en una exposición individual en 1928. Fue un gran éxito y toda su obra se vendió, entre la que se encontraba Cabeza javanesa, adquirida por Samuel Courtauld para la colección de la Tate Gallery . ^{[ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ]}

After a brief marriage to a Wladimir Rolow in Estonia,^[11] in 1930 she married Englishman Dr George Herbert Garlick in Singapore. In 1936 she married her third husband, the Hon. Richard Gilbert Hare (5 September 1907 – 1966), son of Richard Granville Hare, 4th Earl of Listowel and Freda Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone on 21 November 1936. Through her marriage she became part of a liberal aristocratic cultural elite.^[12] The independent income from Hare allowed Dora to build Dorich House in Kingston Vale, her studio and a showcase for her work. As well as, a showcase for their collections of Indian, Chinese and nineteenth-century Russian art and furniture.

Her husband introduced her to London society figures, many of whom sat for her, Dame Edith Evans, Dame Beryl Grey, Dorothy Tutin, Siân Phillips, Emlyn Williams, Sir Kenneth Clark, John Pope-Hennessy and Professor F. Brown, Head of the Slade School of Art. There were also overseas commissions including the Kwa Nin, whose head sculpture Gordine called The Chinese Lady of Peace^[13] and a low-relief at Gray's Inn to Sun Yat-Sen, the former leader of China.^[14]

Each portrait head had its own patina according to Gordine's vision of her sitter. When interviewed by the BBC in 1972 Gordine commented that, "when you do portrait busts of somebody you do their noses and mouth – but it is nothing. You have to imagine what they are like inside and bring out their inner feeling and then put it in a form".^[15]

Al estallar la Segunda Guerra Mundial , la carrera de Gordine se vio interrumpida. Ya no tenía acceso a Valsuani's en París, su fundición favorita, y el bronce pronto se racionó. Todas las fundiciones en Gran Bretaña recibieron la orden de detener toda actividad no esencial y concentrarse en la producción bélica. No fue hasta finales de 1943 o principios de 1944 que encontró una nueva fundición y pudo exhibir algunas de sus últimas obras en bronce en la Royal Academy en 1944. ^{[ 16 ]} Durante las décadas de 1940 y 1950, la obra de Gordine se exhibió regularmente en la Royal Academy, la Society of Portrait Sculptors y otros lugares. En octubre de 1945 tuvo una exposición individual en las Leicester Galleries , en la que The Times la describió como poseedora de «mucha habilidad, aunque es ecléctica en su inspiración, influenciada por obras de muchas escuelas y períodos, entre ellos la india y la egipcia. Sus mejores obras son sus cabezas retrato en bronce, que son convincentes y directas». ^{[ 17 ]} Los bronces de esta época tienen títulos irónicos o humorísticos, relacionados con la pose, como Grandes esperanzas o Travesura y, de un oficial de la RAF, Sobre las nubes . Fue elegida miembro de la Real Sociedad Británica de Escultores en 1949. Ocasionalmente realizó piezas exóticas o eróticas (por ejemplo, para Elizabeth Choy ). Viajó y dio conferencias en Estados Unidos , trabajando en Hollywood, dando conferencias de arte y diseñando decorados cinematográficos ^{[ 18 ]} en 1947 y volvió a visitar los EE. UU. en 1959. ^{[ 19 ]}

En 1948, recibió el encargo de crear una escultura para la nueva unidad de madres y bebés de la prisión de Holloway , en el norte de Londres, financiada por el financiero y ex sufragista Gordon Holmes . ^{[ 20 ]} La obra «Happy Baby» cayó en el olvido en 2009, permaneciendo durante muchos años en un bloque administrativo de la prisión. Ahora, considerada una pieza importante en la trayectoria profesional de «La Gordine», constituyó la pieza central de una exposición de su obra en la Universidad de Kingston entre febrero y marzo de 2009. ^{[ 21 ]} Su obra también formó parte del evento de escultura en el concurso de arte de los Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1948. ^{[ 22 ]}

In 1960 Esso commissioned a 2.1 m x 1.5 m (7' x 5') low-reliefPower for their new Milford Haven Refinery, which was unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh. Gordine's last public commission, the 2–5 m (8') long Mother and Child was made for the entrance hall of the Royal Marsden Hospital, Surrey, in 1963.^[23]

Her husband's sudden death in 1966 from a heart attack left Gordine to live out her life alone in Dorich House. She had no children. As Gordine's client base became smaller and health problems undermined her ability to work to the standard she had during the 1920s, her eyesight deteriorated and she had arthritis in her shoulders and arms causing her career to end in the 1970s.^[24] She had a great interest in her garden and, in particular, herbs and plants used for medicinal purposes, such as Tansy. Adrian Howes and Robert Ruthven were her part-time gardeners for nearly two years in the mid-1970s. She often invited the members of the Royal Ballet School to Dorich house to pose for her. She died in Dorich House in December 1991, aged around 96.

In subsequent years her work was to be revived by major exhibitions in London in 2006 at the Ben Uri Gallery in the Jewish Museum London, and in 2009 at Dorich House and Kingston University.

Dorich House was designed by Gordine and completed in 1936. The name chosen for the house was a portmanteau of Dora and Richard's names.^[25] The house is spread across three floors; the ground and first floors devoted to the production and display of Gordine's work, with the upper floor forming the couple's private apartment. In 1994, it was acquired by Kingston University and was refurbished and formally opened as a museum in 1996, housing Gordine's collection of bronze and plaster sculptures and many of her paintings and drawings. There are also items from Hare's Imperial Russian art collection, which includes icons, paintings, ceramics, glassware, metalwork, folk art and furniture dating from the early 18th century to the early 20th century.^[26]

• Salon de Tuileries, Paris (1926, 1933)
• Leicester Galleries, London (1928, 1933, 1938, 1945, 1949)
• Royal Academy of Arts (1937–1941, 1944–1950, 1952–1960)
• Battersea Park Arts Council (1948)
• Fine Art Society, London (1986)
• Jewish Museum London (2006)
• Kingston University, London (2009)

• 209 obras de arte de o inspiradas en Dora Gordine en el sitio web de Art UK.
• Galería Ben Uri, Museo de Arte Judío de Londres
• Dora Gordine en el Proyecto del Programa de Becarios Universitarios, Universidad Nacional de Singapur
• Museo Casa Dorich
• "Bebé fugado de la cárcel se da a la fuga de Holloway" (Página web de la Universidad de Kingston)
• Blakesley, Rosalind P., “Dorich House”, Country Life Volumen, n.º 30 (4 de agosto de 2005): págs. 58-63.
• Figes, Lydia. «La fascinante obra de Dora Gordine». Art UK , 1 de julio de 2019.