The subject of this portrait, Louis John, worked at the Hawker Hurricane aircraft factory in Kingston. The work was exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in London in 1945. Local newspaper The Surrey Comet described it as a portrait of ‘a young mechanic caught in the full arrogance of youth’ (12 February 1955).
Audrey Mitchell, neé de Souza, identified herself as the sitter for this work on a visit to Dorich House in 2012. At the time of the sittings, which lasted around 6 weeks, she was working at the offices of the US Navy in London.
Founded in the 18th century, the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg produced luxury objects for the Imperial Russian court. After the Revolution of October 1917 and the fall of Imperial rule, the leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, was proclaimed Russia’s new ruler. Lenin saw the potential of art as propaganda and a unique […]
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This work was completed while Gordine was living and working in Paris in the 1920s; it was exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries in Paris in 1929. Dahomy was a kingdom of West Africa, now part of Benin, but the model was a young woman from Senegal. Her name is unknown.
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