institutional
Dod Procter
(1890 - 1972)
Glass, circa 1935
Institutional Collection
Dod Procter (1890 - 1972)
Oil on canvas
20 x 15 ¼ in. (50.9 x 38.7 cm)
Size:
Height – 50.9cm
Width – 38.7cm
The cool, grey-white tones of Glass – painted at North Corner, the house
in Newlyn which Dod Procter shared with her artist husband, Ernest –
recall the painting which had made her a household name.
Morning had been voted Picture of the Year following its inclusion in
the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 1927, where it was purchased
by the Daily Mail for £300 and gifted to the nation. It is now in the Tate
Collection.
Although a different subject, Glass shares a sense of timelessness,
simplicity, understated strength and soft glowing light with Morning,
a portrait of a young girl asleep on a rumpled bed. It is possible that
Glass had been inspired by Dod’s exhibited designs in the ceramics and
glassware sections of the Royal Academy’s Exhibition of British Art in
Industry in 1935.
Dod Procter (née Shaw) was born in Hampstead in 1890 and at the
age of seventeen moved with her family to Newlyn and was enrolled at the
Forbes School of Painting, where she met Ernest. Dod’s life and art was
inevitably influenced by time, place and circumstance – her life spanning
as it did the end of the twentieth and much of the twenty-first century,
experiencing two world wars, industrialisation and huge developments in
education, technology, transport and the social status of women.
In 1942, Dod was only the second woman to be elected as a full
RA member and was one of the few women who managed to succeed
as a professional artist in her own right, with her work exhibited
internationally.
Commentary by Philippa Hogan-Hern, Director of Jerwood, a family of philanthropic arts organisations supporting the arts in the UK.
Dod Procter (n e Doris Shaw) attended the Stanhope Forbes
School of Painting (1907’08) from the age of fifteen. There she
met Ernest Procter (1886’1935), with whom she studied at the
Acad mie Colarossi in Paris (1910’11) before they married in
1912. She first exhibited at the RA in 1913, and in 1914 held a
joint exhibition with her husband at the FAS, London.
During the 1920s, Procter made portraits, usually of
women, often in classical poses though usually with a soft focus
creating an aura of sensuality. Somewhat radical for the time,
the paintings’ eroticism caused some controversy; nevertheless,
Morning (1926) was voted Picture of the Year at the RA Summer
Exhibition in 1927. She also illustrated numerous texts, including
A Penny for the Guy by Clare Collas, published in 1945.
A prolific exhibitor, Procter showed at the NEAC, NSA,
Grosvenor Gallery and STISA (of which she became president in
1966). She was elected RA in 1942.