Girl in a Black Dress (c. 1915) signed 'Dod Procter' (upper left) and inscribed with title (to back of stretcher) oil and tempera on canvas 77 x 62cm with an oil of a water fountain (verso) ARR Provenance The present owner's grandparents; thence by descent; Private collection, UK We are grateful to Toby Procter who has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

Condition Report

Catalogue note
A solitary seated female figuregazes out past the viewer. Dressed in a medieval-esque black smock with abright lacquer-red cap which envelops her dark shoulder-length hair, the girlcrosses her arms and sits motionless, her piercing blue eyes staring into thedistance, her mind lost in thought and detached from the present. She sits infront of a decorative pattern of flower motifs which adorns a panel ofwallpaper, tapestry or silk cloth, alongside a plain blue/grey wall. In the top left-handcorner, the maker’s signature reads ‘Dod Procter’.

This newly discovered work by DodProcter (1890-1972), from a private collection, is truly remarkable as itappears to be the earliest figurative work by the artist to have appeared onthe market in the last couple of decades. It provides a glimpse into Dod’searly years as an artist, exploring and developing a visual vocabulary whichwould then characterise her oeuvre from the 1920s. Only three other figurative works painted before 1920 by Dod, but which arguably post-date the present painting, are known to us in public collections: a portrait in oil from 1916 of her friend Sheelah Hynes (sister of the artist Gladys Hynes) at The Wolfsonian-Florida International University (Colour Magazine, June 1919), and two line drawings, one most certainly a preparatory sketch for the oil, at the Tate Archives (these are recto-verso on a sheet of paper and the second sketch, the figure wearing a hat, may be of Sheelah or Gladys). Another figurative work, The Charm, from this period was reproduced in Colour Magazine in December 1918.

The composition and subject are typicalof Dod’s more mature figurative work from the 1920s, which led to her rise tofame in 1925 with The Model (exhibited at the RA in 1925) andsubsequently Morning (exhibited at the RA in 1927 and immediatelyacquired for the nation by the Tate, where it is still held today), propellingher to stardom and international acclaim. These works often depict the figurepositioned close-up at a three-quarter angle to the viewer and, viewed slightlyfrom above or sometimes from below, offer a sense of monumentality andweightiness akin to sculpture. The sitter, as in the present work, if notasleep, gazes into the void, the minimalist space and the various propsstrategically placed beside her creating a possible accompanying narrative.

The presence of tempera in thiswork with its transparent quality, most notably in the bodice, is evidence ofits early dating. We know from her letters to Ernest Procter, whom she marriedin 1912, that during the 1910s Dod was experimenting and practising withtempera, a medium which was experiencing a revival at the turn of the 20^thCentury, promoted by critics such as Roger Fry and artists such as MarianneStokes, herself a member of the Newlyn School in the last decade of the 19^th century. On occasion Dod would use tempera as a means of mapping out a colourscheme before working on the final piece in oil. It would appear from thepresent work that she also worked in mixed media, namely tempera and oil.

The bold lacquer-red pigment which Dod employed for the girl’s hatattests to the dating of this work and a similar colour was used for a stilllife entitled Poppies and Foxgloves (Modern Britishand Irish Art Day Sale, Christie’s, London, 21st March 2024, lot 145), which Dod described duringits production in a letter to Ernest in 1917. The hat itself may be the onelater worn by Dod’s model Lillian in Girl with a Red Cap (1923) (Paintings Sale, Woolley& Wallis, Salisbury, 21st March 2012, lot 249).

Dod exhibited nationally in groupexhibitions with, but not solely, the Royal Academy, WIAC (Women’sInternational Art Club), Society of Women Artists, United Artists, AlliedArtists and in gallery shows such as the Leicester Galleries and Brook StreetGalleries. She also exhibited internationally with the British Artists’Exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1928, the Venice Biennale from 1922 to 1930, theCanadian National Exhibition, the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh from1924 to 1935, in a solo show at the Carl Fischer Gallery New York in 1936 and asolo show at the Carnegie in 1936-37, thereby gaining an internationalclientele.

Greatly supported by the Britishpress, art journals and art critics, most notably Frank Rutter, the Francophileand proponent of Post-Impressionism, Dod was an important and highly recognisedmodernist painter and in 1942 became the second woman to be elected a RoyalAcademician (Laura Knight being the first). Her paintings are now held inimportant national and international institutions, such as the Tate and the CarnegieMuseum of Art in Pittsburgh.

Trained in Newlyn under theauspices of Stephen and Elizabeth Forbes, who sought inspiration from the artcolonies in Brittany, Dod was part of the second generation of painters fromthe Newlyn School and a key member of the Newlyn and Lamorna art colonies, herartistic and social network counting among others Laura Knight, Gluck, GladysHynes, Ernest Procter, Gertrude and Harold Harvey, Cedric Morris and AJMunnings.

We are grateful to Alexandra Kett-Baumann for her assistance with the cataloguing of this work and for preparing this catalogue note.

Condition Report
Original canvas with the basis of another composition (verso); approximately 1inch surface abrasion to the sitter's chest, lower right; smaller abrasions to background, lower left and to curtain, lower right; further scattered frame abrasions to each border; canvas visible to the upper left border; Ultraviolet reveals retouching to the sitter's forehead, cheeks and chin but these barely fluoresce and are therefore likely to be the artist's hand. Held in a modern composite gilt frame in fair condition.