Dorette

Kathleen Nancy Woodward|Gerald Leslie Brockhurst

1932 · Etching; sixth state of six · Drawings and Prints

Brockhurst made this etching about five years after meeting Kathleen Woodward as a young model at the Royal Academy schools where he was a visiting professor. Renamed Dorette (Gift) by the artist, she displaced his wife Anaïs at the center of his art. Modernity is conveyed here by short hair, the cardigan and silk scarf, and expression that seems at once hesitant and determined–an effect distinctly different from earlier prints that show a serene Anaïs dressed in old-fashioned, elaborately ornamented costumes. Brockhurst communicates admiration for both Dorette and fifteenth-century Italian art in a composition indebted to Leonardo's "Mona Lisa." He worked on the print concurrently with a related painting shown at the Royal Academy in 1933 (Harris Museum and Art Gallery Preston).

Artist

Kathleen Nancy Woodward|Gerald Leslie Brockhurst

Date

1932

Medium

Etching; sixth state of six

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1968