Gordine, Dora c. 1895 - 1991

There is some uncertainty as to where and when Dora Gordine, formerly Gordin [in Russian Дора Гордин] was born.  She claimed to have been born in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire on 13 April 1906, however, it is now thought that she was in fact born elsewhere in Russian Empire [probably in Liepaja, also known as Libau, in Latvia] in June 1895 [1]. In 1912 she moved with her family to Tallinn in Estonia where she began to exhibit. In 1920 they moved to Berlin. In 1924 Gordine went to Paris where she studied sculpture under Aristide Masillol (1861-1944). She also took a studio.

In 1925 she received a commission to work on a painted mural  for the British pavilion at the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris that year.  She began exhibiting at the Salon de Tuileries in Paris in 1926.

In 1929 she was commissioned to provide decorative bronzes for the new City Hall in Singapore, a project on which she worked for the next six years.  By the early 1930s she had settled in London and in 1936 married her third husband, Richard Gilbert Hare (1907-1966), a diplomat. Together, they planned, designed and decorated their house, Dorich House, near Richmond Park, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. This eccentric building on three floors, which incorporated Gordine's studio and a showroom for her artwork, appears to have been her only foray into architecture. It is now a museum.

Soon after her move to Britain she began receiving commissions for her portrait heads and busts. Among those who sat for her were the actors Dorothy Tutin, Emlyn Williams Edith Evans; the ballet dancer Beryl Gray, the art historian and museum director Sir Kenn eth Clark; and the painter and keeper of the Tate Gallery, D.S. MacColl.

She first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1937 and continued to do so regularly until 1969. Her work was also shown at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Society of Women Artists and the Society of Portrait Sculptors in London; and at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.  Solo exhibitions of her work were held at the Leicester Galleries in London, the first being in 1928. A solo exhibition was also held at the Fine Art Society in London in 1986.

In 1938 Gordine was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (A.R.B.S.), and in 1949 was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (F.R.B.S.),  She died at Dorich House, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey on 29 December 1991.

* Oxford Dictionary of National Biography