Press release
In a letter written in 1946 Dorothy Kay wrote “...Models came pouring in & we picked all sorts of one’s- each of us choosing what we liked- back views or side views...The women are all so patient- & make marvellous models- One beauty sat all day more or less- we couldn’t get her to stop...I’ve done rather a nice thing of her...”[1]
The “rather nice thing” to which Dorothy Kay referred was a work executed in pencil, conté and watercolour. It depicted a seated full length figure in profile wearing a huge ighiya, a long-stemmed pipe held to her lips, a blue matchbox on her lap and her heavily black-braided skirt showing below the ochre blanket. In lot 581 the same figure is shown (as well as two others) and is a clear demonstration of Kay’s comprehensive use of her preparatory works in later completed oils. A master draughtswoman, the lines which describe the shape and placement of her subject are complimented by her non-traditional approach to watercolour- “bodycolour suits me better than luminosity and purity”[2].
These works are not made up of line and wash but rather line, wash and a deft blocking in of shapes through her use of opaque colour - thus laying the foundation for the completed oils. All of this can clearly be seen in Xhosa Women which she completed in 1946. In the watercolour titled Xosa Women, Kay has not completed the right hand arm of the foreground figure - the sitter’s skeletal structure can be seen beneath the construction lines of the incomplete brass armlet. In the oil Xhosa Women the armlet is seen on the forearm of the foreground sitter, the same pipe resting in her fingers. In all of these figures, Kay has described the white face paint by blocking in the mask without needing to use up any more of her precious bodycolour[3].
“In sketch books for what would appear to be the sequence of subjects in which Dorothy was interested during early 1943, several studies are of interiors in the Port Elizabeth Library...”
Lot 584 is a charcoal study with broad areas of applied wash which serve to draw the viewer’s attention to the same newspaper that the men are reading with studied concentration. Kay had a an astute skill in extracting the humour from such a serious act and thus makes a caricature out of each of these men desperate to keep abreast of current affairs.
This same sketch was later used by Kay in a monotype executed in 1961. Both works bear the title Public Library.
[1] Marjorie Reynolds, “Everything You do is a Portrait of Yourself” Dorothy Kay: A Biography, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, p 159
2 Marjorie Reynolds, “Everything You do is a Portrait of Yourself” Dorothy Kay: A Biography, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, p 162
3 Ibid.
[1] Marjorie Reynolds, “Everything You do is a Portrait of Yourself” Dorothy Kay: A Biography, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, p 159
[2] Marjorie Reynolds, “Everything You do is a Portrait of Yourself” Dorothy Kay: A Biography, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, p 162
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