Dorothy Thornhill

Autumn (Study for the SS Westralia mural The Four Seasons)
Oil on masonite
signed and dated l.r. signed and inscribed verso with title and artist’s addresses.
38.5 x 38.5 cm

SOLD

Exhibited: Society of Artists 1947, Cat No. 21, NFS; A Centenary of Australian Women Artists, Deutscher Fine Arts, 1993, cat. 148, illustrated p91

Illustrated: The Australian Artist Vol 1 Pt. 4, 1948, p.35

Provenance: The artist; Victor Mace, Brisbane; private collection, Sydney; Macquarie Galleries, 1978; private collection, Sydney. original frame.

Dorothy Thornhill was born in England in 1910 and came to Australia in 1929 via New Zealand where she had studied at the Auckland Art School. She continued her studies in Sydney at East Sydney Technical College and later in London at the Royal Academy Schools from 1933 to 1935. On returning to Australia she married Douglas Dundas in 1941 and began exhibiting with the Society of Artists. For many years she worked as a teacher at the East Sydney Technical College and has been highly praised by many artists who have been taught by her. She and Dundas completed four murals for the SS Westralia but the whereabouts of these finished murals is unknown. They are recorded by photographs which accompanied the two preliminary sketches when they were purchased from the Macquarie Galleries. Copies are sold with this painting