Dora Gordine - Career

Career

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 Philosopher Kuu Nim, whose head sculpture Gordine called 'the Chinese Lady of Peace' and a bas-relief at Gray's Inn to Sun Yat-Sen, the former leader of China.

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".

During the 1940s/50s Gordine's work was exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the Society of Portrait Sculptors and elsewhere. Bronzes from this time have ironic or humorous titles, relating to the pose, such as 'Great Expectations' or 'Mischief' and, of an RAF Officer, 'Above Cloud'. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors in 1949. She occasionally did exotic or erotic pieces (e.g. for Elizabeth Choy). She travelled and lectured in America, working in Hollywood in 1948 and revisited the USA in 1959. .

In 1948 she was commissioned to produce a sculpture to stand in the new mother and baby unit at Holloway Prison in north London. 'Happy Baby' was largely forgotten by 2009 languishing in an administration block at the prison for many years. Now regarded as an important piece in 'La Gordine's' professional history it formed the centre piece of an exhibition of her work at Kingston University in February–March 2009.

In 1960 Esso commissioned a 7' x 5' bas-relief 'Power' for their new Milford Haven Refinery, which was unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh. Gordine's last public commission, the 8' long 'Mother and Child' was made for the entrance hall of the Royal Marsden Hospital, Surrey, in 1963.