Hilda May Gordon
(1874-1972).
British archaeologist and
painter.
She studied under Frank
Brangwyn (1866-1956) and Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914) at the Bushy
School of Art and joined Brangwyn on a painting trip to Italy in 1900.
A
significant part of her paintings consists of tens of aquarelles painted in
Palestine around the year 1900.
Although inspired by the Orientalist academic
trend, some individual shades can be traced in Hilda May Gordon's small
paintings, in particular her tendency towards the light cloudy shade, and her
remote view which is always one of a curious but cautious tourist.
She set off travelling for
a few months in 1922 and ended up going on a trip around the world, which
lasted six years. During this time she visited India, Kashmir, Tibet, Burma,
Thailand, Indonesia, China and Japan and produced a large body of watercolour
paintings - the product of her keen ability to render people and the atmosphere
of exotic places in colourful compositions.
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The expression on the face of this cute baby Orang Oetang (she saw probably while in Indonesia) instantly reminded me of two woodcuts by Dutch artist Theo Dijkwel (1881-1952) who in London had been a student of pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes (1832-1915). Dijkwel isn't very well known and there aren't many examples of his work to be found but most of his prints I know are about animals and show, besides skill, a keen observer and a very sensitive artist. His subject will have lived in Amsterdam Artis-Zoo
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I love to read about adventurous women artists instead of marrying and having a husband and a family traveling the world and leaving us accounts and pictures of the world they engaged.
Hilda May Gordon was such an adventurous artist and I only happened to discover her stumbling over these recent Ebay offers of woodcut prints not mentioned anywhere before (as far as I know). Because there were several copies they also learned she happily experimented with colors.
Heaven knows where they came from but I could not resist having a try keeping at least 3 copies of her unsigned (African) woodcut prints together.
All other pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.
