Didn’t Dora Gordine add an “e” to her last name to sound more Russian. Here we are at the Atelier de Dora Gordine. It stands as a testament to a remarkable artist’s life and legacy. Dora Gordine was an Estonian Jewish Modernist figurative and portraitist sculptor. She was born on June 8 1895. She died on December 29 1991 in Kingston upon Thames, London.
Dora’s childhood is not well documented. Confusion surrounds her birth date. Various dates like 1895, 1898, and 1906 have been mentioned. She was the youngest of four children. Her parents were Morduch Gordin and Emma Ester Schepshelewitch. They were Russian Jews from Liepāja, Latvia, back when it was part of the Russian Empire.
Two of Dora’s siblings died at the hands of the Nazis in Tallinn, Estonia, in 1941. Another brother, Leopold, moved to London. The Gordin family was middle class. They had money for Dora’s elder brother to study engineering at Edinburgh University. Dora’s father was prepared to pay for her elder sister to study at one of Tallinn’s leading art schools.
By 1912, the Gordin family had moved to Tallinn, Estonia. Dora’s approach to sculpture was shaped by the Noor Eesti group. They championed Art Nouveau. She exhibited bronze sculptures in Tallinn in 1917, 1920, and 1921. In the autumn of 1924, she went to Paris. She studied French civilization and contemporary French sculptural practice. Surrounded by galleries and salons, she felt a correlation between music and sculpture. This helped develop her sculptural vision.
In 1925, Dora Gordine worked as a painter on a mural for the British Pavilion at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. It helped her cast a bronze for exhibition at the Beaux Arts Society. In 1926, she was invited to exhibit at the Salon des Tuileries. Her head design of a Chinese philosopher earned enthusiastic reviews. The Straits Times wrote “Like Byron, one morning Dora Gordine woke up famous”.
Between 1929 and 1935, she sculpted bronzes for the City Hall in Singapore. Leicester Galleries in London presented Gordine’s sculpture in a solo show in 1928. It was a huge success. Samuel Courtauld bought Javanese Head for the Tate Gallery collection.
After a brief marriage to Wladimir Rolow in Estonia, she married Englishman Dr George Herbert Garlick in Singapore in 1930. In 1936, she married her third husband. He was the Hon. Richard Gilbert Hare. Through her marriage, she became part of a liberal aristocratic cultural elite. Hare’s income allowed Dora to build Dorich House in Kingston Vale. It was her studio and a showcase for her work. It also showcased their collections of Indian, Chinese, and 19th-century Russian art and furniture.
Her husband introduced her to London society figures. Many sat for her. These included Dame Edith Evans, Dame Beryl Grey, Dorothy Tutin, Siân Phillips, and Sir Kenneth Clark. There were also overseas commissions. These included the Kwa Nin. Gordine called its head sculpture The Chinese Lady of Peace. She also created a low-relief at Gray’s Inn to Sun Yat-Sen.
Each portrait head had its own patina. Gordine matched it to her vision of the sitter. In a 1972 BBC interview, she said you have to imagine what they are like inside. You have to bring out their inner feeling and then put it in a form.
At the outbreak of World War II, Gordine’s career stopped. She no longer had access to Valsuani’s in Paris. Bronze quickly became rationed. In late 1943 or early 1944, she found a new foundry. She exhibited some of her bronze work in the Royal Academy in 1944. During the 1940s and 50s, Gordine’s work was exhibited regularly. In October 1945, The Times described her as having much ability. They noted her eclectic inspiration from Indian and Egyptian works. Her best works were her portrait heads in bronze.
In 1948, she was commissioned to produce a sculpture for the new mother and baby unit at Holloway Prison. Happy Baby was largely forgotten by 2009. It formed the center piece of an exhibition of her work at Kingston University in 2009.
In 1960, Esso commissioned a low-relief Power for their new Milford Haven Refinery. Gordine’s last public commission was Mother and Child for the Royal Marsden Hospital in 1963. Her husband’s death in 1966 left Gordine to live alone in Dorich House. She had no children. Her client base shrank. Health problems undermined her ability to work. Her career ended in the 1970s. She died in Dorich House in December 1991. Major exhibitions in London in 2006 and 2009 revived her work.