Dorothy Colles; artist
Hyfler/Rosner
Artist specialising in children's portraits
15 December 2003
Dorothy Margaret Tyas Colles, artist: born Cairo 14 January 1917; died
Petersfield, Hampshire 12 November 2003.
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Dorothy Colles was an artist gifted in portraits of children. Her book on
the subject, Portraying Children (1953), proved invaluable for artists
aspiring to emulate her in recording these most elusive subjects.
Colles would usually paint two portraits of a child during several sittings,
one full-face, one three-quarter-face, the parents then having a choice. She
rarely painted full-length portraits, almost all being half- to
three-quarter-length. "Whether it is a small girl looking at her porridge as
if she hated it or another seated in the garden in a hat, it was the face
that was the key feature that Dorothy chose to concentrate on," says her
friend Pru Scurfield. "Her portraits are fresh, with a spark of character,
and can be wonderfully lively."
Few admirers of Colles's portraits of children and adults, shown at the
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and
the Pastel Society, of which she was a member, had any idea of her youthful
versatility. Her early career entailed much more than capturing a human
image.
She was born in Cairo in 1917. Her father, Morris Colles, was a forensic
scientist working for the Egyptian government, and also a medical-school
professor. He eventually retired to England, where in the 1930s Dorothy
began her training at the Central, Westminster, Epsom and St Martin's
schools of art. Parental reaction to this career choice was mixed. Dorothy
Colles had a good grounding, her teachers including the painters Bernard
Meninsky and Mark Gertler and the printmaker John Farleigh.
Soon after she began at St Martin's the Second World War began. Colles was
keen to join the war effort and from 1940 to 1945 was in the Women's
Auxiliary Air Force. She served in the UK and the Middle East, involved in
aerial reconnaissance, photographic intelligence and model-making prior to
the invasion of Sicily.
Colles returned to St Martin's, intent on becoming a sound draughtsman. This
was important when she joined the Egypt Exploration Society. She was
attached to the Abydos expedition, recording hieroglyphs on temples
threatened with the rising desert water-table. The agreement with the
society discloses that her fee for the 1946-47 season was for "not exceeding
six months' field work, with board and lodging free of charge". She was also
promised £150 to cover her return journey, plus expenses.
While busy in Egypt, Colles began work for the Jordanian government, which
continued beyond the Egyptian commitment. In Jordan, she drew records of
ancient sites as well as painting portraits of the king's immediate circle,
part of the royal family and Bedouin warriors.
Returned to England in the late 1940s, Colles appears to have taken a
pointer from her Jordanian experience in developing a freelance career. She
concentrated on portrait painting, finding that she liked sketching and
painting children. Other sketches she completed for herself, landscapes and
townscapes, she chose not to exhibit. "She didn't pursue these, perhaps, as
much as she should have done," says Pru Scurfield.
In the 1950s Colles met the painter, calligrapher and writer Heather Child,
then in the West Country working and looking after her family. From the
early 1960s, the two artists lived together. It was Child's firm Christian
belief that lay behind their joint 1971 book Christian Symbols Ancient &
Modern. Child would often entertain Colles's child subjects while they were
being painted. This chatter encouraged spontaneity and change of mood.
Although she took part in mixed shows and had a solo exhibition at Leighton
House, Kensington, in 1962, Colles worked substantially to commission.
Initially the portraits were in oil and pastel, latterly almost exclusively
pastel. She told me that the pastelists she especially admired were Chardin,
Degas, La Tour and Angelica Kauffmann, the draughtsmen Rubens, Ingres and
Augustus John.
By the time she died, Colles was almost blind. She had continued painting
until about eight years ago, when a degenerative eye disease developed.
David Buckman