Dorothy Coke
Born11 April 1897
Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England
Died1979 (aged 81–82)
Brighton, Sussex, England
EducationSlade School of Fine Art
Known forPainting

Dorothy Josephine Coke (11 April 1897 – 1979) was an English artist notable for her work as a war artist on the British home front during the Second World War.[1] Coke was also an art teacher and as an artist was known for her watercolours, which have a very free, open-air quality to them.[2]

Life and work

WAAF Instrument Mechanics at Work (1941) (ArtIWM.ART LD 1298)

Coke was born in Southend-on-Sea in Essex in 1897, where her father was a tea exporter.[3] When she was seventeen, Coke entered the Slade School of Art, where she continued to study throughout the First World War and where she won a prize for figure composition.[3] In the summer of 1918 Coke submitted some sketches to the British War Memorials Committee for a possible commission. That proposal was rejected but shortly afterwards Muirhead Bone bought two of her watercolours for the Imperial War Museum collection.[4][5] In 1919 she was elected a member of the New English Art Club.[6]

By the start of World War Two Coke was a popular and well known artist. During the War she received a short-term commission from the War Artists Advisory Committee to depict the work being performed by women in various services.[7] To this end she spent time with the Women's Voluntary Service, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and also with the Red Cross.[8] One of her paintings was included in the Britain at War exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York which opened in May 1941.[9] By the end of the War, WAAC had acquired eight paintings from Coke.[4] During the War, in 1943, she was elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society, having previously become an Associate member in 1935.[6]

After the War, Coke taught art at Brighton College of Art until her retirement in 1967.[1][10]

References

  1. 1 2 Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-106-6.
  2. ↑ David Buckman (1998). Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L. Art Dictionaries Ltd. ISBN 0-95326-095-X.
  3. 1 2 Penny Dunford (1990). A Biographical Dictionary of Women Artists in Europe and America since 1850. Harvester Wheatsheaf. ISBN 0-7108-1144-6.
  4. 1 2 Kathleen Palmer (2011). Women War Artists. Tate Publishing/Imperial War Museum. ISBN 978-1-85437-989-4.
  5. ↑ Imperial War Museum. "World War One art archive, Coke, Dorothy J". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  6. 1 2 Grant M. Waters (1975). Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950. Eastbourne Fine Art.
  7. ↑ Catherine Speck (2014). Beyond the Battlefield, Women Artists of Two World Wars. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-178023-374-1.
  8. ↑ Imperial War Museum. "War artists archive, Miss D J Coke". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  9. ↑ Brain Foss (2007). War paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939-1945. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10890-3.
  10. ↑ "The Aldrich Collection: Dorothy Coke". University of Brighton. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
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