Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, R.A. (1890-1978)

Gerald Leslie Brockhurst first met Kathleen Woodward at the Royal Academy Schools in 1928, where she was a model. At only 16 – 22 years the artist's junior – Brockhurst was mesmerised by her youthful beauty and elegance. In the mode of Augustus John (whom he and his first wife Anaïs had become great friends with, whilst living in Ireland from 1915-19), he renamed her ‘Dorette’: she was to become his second wife, model, and muse, and he would exhibit works of her annually at the Royal Academy, from 1933-1939.

Dorette's sister Nancy, depicted here, bears a striking resemblance to her sibling. One other portrait in oils of Nancy Woodward, later Mrs S Keyte, is known to exist. In this portrait, painted in the 1930s, presumably around the same time as the painting offered here, Nancy's cascading curls are crowned by a black beret. It is now in the collection of The Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, and was loaned by them to the 1987 exhibition of Brockhurst's work A Dream of Fair Women.