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As soon as the canvas Morning, by Dod Procter (1892-1972), was put on
show by the Royal Academy in its 1927 summer exhibition it caused a
sensation.
Everyone who had been lucky enough to have seen it prior to
its removal to London had remarked on its beauty and resonance and as
soon as it went on public display it brought the Newlyn School artist
considerable acclaim; she became the best-known British artist for a
while.From very tender years, Dod had shown great artistic promise and
a strong love of nature, especially flowers. Her letters to her father
and brother of the late 19th century were littered with pencil sketches
of animals and plants and she had even drawn a sparrow when just two
years old.
Her
eagerness to make art her career would have delighted her mother,
Eunice, who had herself been nominated best in her year at the Slade.
The family were living in Tavistock when her father died, so she, her
brother and mother moved to Newlyn where Doris (Dod) Margaret Shaw was
to live for the rest of her life.
Being immersed in one of the
most invigorating and lively artistic movements of the time proved
perfect, and Dod was easily absorbed in to the community in 1907 when
she joined the Newlyn School. Here she was recognised as the most
gifted student and studied the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
in Paris, and was deeply impressed by the work of Cezanne and Renoir.
Ernest
and Dod married in 1912 and he became a major influence on her work.
During the 1920s Dod concentrated on the nude, producing several
pre-pubescent girls which caused consternation at the time, though she
also produced landscapes and some remarkable still life studies of
flowers.
She had painted Morning, her exhibit for the RA the
previous summer, using Cissie Barnes, a 16-year-old fisherman's
daughter, as a model.
At this exhibition she also showed a still
life of flowers, but it was her innocent depiction of this young girl
that caught the public's imagination strongly; indeed, so many
clamoured to view the work that a tour of the country was arranged and
it was displayed in 23 provincial galleries.
Even towns without
galleries were prepared to make special arrangements to show it. The
Daily Mail had paid £300 for it, a modest sum even then, and the paper
exploited their investment to the full and made celebrities of the
model and artist, inviting them both to London to see the picture in
situ and duly reporting the visit.
Cissie was unlike other
artists' models. Her sleeping form, softly draped in nightclothes,
caught the public's imagination and was voted Painting of the Year at
the Royal Academy and given to the Tate.
Ernest's sudden and
unexpected death in 1935 deeply affected Dod, but she continued to
paint and travel, visiting the West Indies, Tenerife and Africa. She
remained in Cornwall, and in 1942 was elected a Royal Academician, only
the second woman to have been awarded this honour.
A major
retrospective touring exhibition entitled Dod Procter (1892-1972)
includes Morning and a superb self-portrait, and is on until Saturday,
November 24 at Penlee House Museum and Gallery.
This wonderful
exhibition of 60 works, sponsored by W H Lane & Sons Fine Art
Auctioneers of Penzance, is accompanied by a major new monograph on the
artist, entitled A Singular Vision, written by Alison James and
published by Sansom & Co.
article copyright WESTERN MORNING NEWS
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