Dorelia

Rendered in sumptuous red chalk, the present work is an intimate and passionate portrait of Augustus John’s great love, Dorothy ‘Dorelia’ McNeill, whom John had met in 1903. Later that year she moved in with the artist, his wife Ida and family, becoming his muse. To him Dorelia was the embodiment of John’s complex ideal of womanhood: as Michael Holroyd commented: 'She was, of course, hypnotically beautiful - almost embarrassingly so, Will Rothenstein found: 'one could not take one's eyes off her'. ... In his portraiture, Augustus was like a stage director, assigning his subjects all sorts of dramatic roles. Dorelia, it seems, acquiesced in them, fitting each of them to perfection - mother, mistress, little girl, phantasm, goddess, seductress, wife. She became all things to him; she was everywoman' (Augustus John The Years of Innocence, London, 1974, pp. 148-149).

John's passion and obsession for Dorelia is sensitively revealed in the present work. An enigmatic, 'Mona Lisa' smile is on her lips and her hypnotic, gaze draws the viewer in, simultaneously distant yet intense. John portrays her as he saw her, a woman of uncompromising beauty and serenity. The frenzied combination of bold and flickering lines in dark red chalk is typical of John's portrait sketches of this period where he is consumed with capturing the moment and injecting vitality. Dorelia demonstrates John's virtuosity as a draftsman, developing a method of linear drawing in colour whose success depended on his ability to make the drawing exciting, full of movement, energy and, in the case of Dorelia, passion.

We are very grateful to Rebecca John for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.