Forty one sketches, prints and one unfinished oil painting by Dorothy Brett

Dorothy Brett was a British painter, who studied at the Slade School of Art, associating with Dora Carrington, Barbara Hiles and the Bloomsbury group, from 1910 until 1916. She became known by her surname only and like Carrington and Hiles, she had her hair cut short (for the time) in a style that led Virginia Woolf to call them 'cropheads'. Through fellow student Mark Gertler, she met Lady Ottoline Morrell and began mixing in an artistic and literary circle that included Clive Bell, Bertrand Russell, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Augustus John, Aldous Huxley, and George Bernard Shaw. She became particularly close to Lawrence and his circle, who after visiting Taos, New Mexico for the first time in 1923 returned to London, where he held a dinner party at the Cafe Royal (which he called "The Last Supper"). There he tried to recruit friends to move to Taos in order "to create a utopian society he called 'Rananim'". While almost all who attended had "agreed to follow Lawrence to New Mexico....when it came to the actual packing for departure, there was only one recruit - the Honorable Dorothy Brett". Brett remained there for the rest of her life, becoming an American citizen in 1938. These 41 sketches and prints were completed by Brett while a student at the Slade School of Art. Most of the works depict studies of male and female nudes, but there are also several self-portraits, and prints and sketches showing biblical and fantastical scenes.

Collection Owner

The Hon. Dorothy Brett 1883–1977

Collection

Tate Archive

Acquisition

Purchased from Alan Cowie, London, 2017

Reference

TGA 20188