GERALD LESLIE BROCKHURST (1890-1978)

Adolescence is considered Brockhurst’s masterpiece in the etching medium. The young woman gazing at her reflection in the mirror is the artist's muse, Kathleen Woodward, whom he had met in 1926 while she was a model at the Royal Academy Schools in London. Their affair caused a scandal, and led to Brockhurst's very public and acrimonious divorce from his first wife, Anaïs Folin. Woodward and Brockhurst later moved to New York, where they married in 1947. For Brockhurst, 'Dorette' (as he called Woodward), embodied his vision of young womanhood and the work is charged with the sensuality of their impetuous relationship.