Mirage

A beautiful bronze sculpture by Dora Gordine in Dorich House Gallery which she built as her home in 1936 on the edge of Richmond Park. I have put a picture of the exterior in the extras - rather Modernist power station style - plus her magnificent studio and a view of her apartment on the top floor.  This sculpture, called "Mirage", is of a female ballet dancer, created in 1949.

She came from a rich Eastern Europe Jewish family, and learned to sculpt in Paris in the early years of the 20th century.  Described as ruthless but perfectly charming, she was a serial marrier of rich men until she married a minor British aristocrat (the Richard who contributed half of his name to the house) who doted on her.  Sadly he died young and she had a long and lonely widowhood. When she eventually died in her 90s the house became derelict and was used for raves and as a squat. Most of the contents were auctioned off by Kingston University when it acquired the house so that they could afford to restore it. Today it holds a fraction of what would have been in it in the 1960s, but it is nevertheless wonderful and fascinating.