Dora Gordine

Malay Head

1931

© Estate of Dora Gordine, courtesy Dorich House Museum, Kingston University

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Not on display

Artist: Dora Gordine 1895–1991
Medium: Bronze on wooden base
Dimensions: Object: 350 × 222 × 336 mm, 10.5 kg
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Mrs Rhoda Symons 1937
Reference: N04860

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This head also comes from Gordine’s series of sculptures that represent the physiognomic characteristics of different races. When Gordine held an exhibition of her work in London in 1938, she was praised by poet and critic Arthur Symons: ‘Her profound sense of pure form in sculpture, heedless alike of realism and of exaggerated abstraction, is united with the subtlest delicacy of modelling, and these qualities endow her bronzes with abnormal power.’ This work was bequeathed to Tate by Symons’ wife, Rhoda.

Dora Gordine was born in St. Petersburg in 1906 and died in London in 1991.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

N04860 A MALAY SULTANA 1933

Inscr. ‘Dora Gordine 1/8’ on back of head.
Bronze, 10 3/4×8 3/4×13 3/4 (27×22×35), on black marble base, 3×7 1/2×6 1/4 (7×19×16).
Bequeathed by Mrs Rhoda Symons 1937.
Exh: Leicester Galleries, July 1933 (10).
Lit: E. H. Ramsden, Sculpture: Theme and Variations, 1953, p.23, repr. pl.38a.

Modelled in the Malay Peninsula in 1933 and cast in Paris. Other casts belong to the City Hall, Singapore, Richard Prichard, London, and the artist.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I