Workshop
Women's Studio Museums
9:30–12:30
Dorich House Museum, Kingston University
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Dorich House is the former studio-home of the sculptor Dora Gordine and her husband, the Hon. Richard Hare, scholar of Russian art and literature. Completed in 1936 to Gordine’s design and now Grade II listed, the museum forms a rare example of a preserved modern studio-house created by and for a woman.
In this workshop, held in Gordine’s former studio-home, Fiona Fisher (Curator, Dorich House Museum) and Jonathan Black (co-author of Dora Gordine: Sculptor, Artist, Designer) explore the practice and career of Dora Gordine. The speakers will also consider the museum’s role as a centre to support contemporary women’s creative practices and the representation of women in studio museums more generally.
Programme
9:30
Registration and refreshments
10:00–10:45
Tour of Dorich House Museum, led by Fiona Fisher
10:45–11:30
Fiona Fisher: Introduction to the collections at Dorich House Museum and the annual Studio Residency scheme
11:30–11:45
Break
11:45–12:30
Jonathan Black: Introduction to the work of Dora Gordine
13:00–14:00
Lunch at Kingston Museum, including talk by Charlotte Samuels (Curator at Kingston Museum)
About the speakers
Dr Jonathan Black FRHistS was awarded his PhD in History of Art by University College London for his thesis exploring constructions of masculinity and the image of the ordinary British soldier of the Great War, or ‘Tommy’, in the art of Eric Kennington (1888-1960), C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946) and Charles Sargeant Jagger MC (1885-1934). Relevant publications include: The Sculpture of Eric Kennington (2002); Dora Gordine: Sculptor, Artist, Designer (with Brenda Martin, 2008); The Face of Courage: Eric Kennington, Portraiture and the Second World War (2011); Abstraction and Reality: The Sculpture of Ivor Roberts-Jones (with Sara Ayres, 2013); C.R.W. Nevinson: The Complete Prints (2014) and The Titan With Many Faces: Winston Churchill in British Art From 1900 To The Present Day (2018). He has curated exhibitions on the sculpture of Dora Gordine (Kingston Museum, 2009) and the portrait sculpture of Ivor Roberts-Jones (National Museum of Wales, 2014). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2018 for his World War I research. Jonathan is currently a Senior Research Fellow in History of Art, Kingston School of Art, Kingston University.
Dr Fiona Fisher is the curator of Dorich House Museum at Kingston University, where she is a member of the Modern Interiors Research Centre. Her research explores the history of the modern interior from the late nineteenth century to today, with a focus on domesticity and the design of such everyday leisure spaces as pubs, restaurants and cafes. She is a co-editor of Dora: Dialogues on Women’s Creative Practice and Thinking.
Charlotte Samuels is a part-time PhD candidate at Kingston School of Art working on a thesis entitled ‘The Wrens, Potterscroft and the Oxshott Pottery: Shifting the story of interwar studio ceramics from pot to process’. Her research aims to highlight the unique contribution to enabling amateur pottery made by the Wrens, a family of studio potters who established the Oxshott Pottery in Surrey in 1920, in order to broaden understanding of the history of studio craft. She is also a curator at Kingston Museum. Her blog is PhD Pottering: phdpottering.com
Researching Women in Sculpture
Researching Women in Sculpture reflects upon women’s contribution to the field of sculpture, investigating archival and collecting practices that have historically obscured work by women and suggesting strategies for how these might be addressed moving forward.