Sculpture - Dorothy Dick

Kneeling Figure Leaning on Elbows, in Elm by Dorothy Dick (1932 -2023) Created in 1983 this shunning piece of work created by one of Scotland's brightest artists who passed away in Dornoch in recent years. This is one of her earlier pieces before she committed to Art full time in the 1980s. Measures 27" wide, 8" Depth & 11" height More information on Dorothy and her work can be seen at her website: Dorothy Dick's career as engineer and mathematician was preceded by a degree in Maths and Physics at Glasgow University (she was born in Glasgow in 1932). In parallel with this she developed her interest in art by training part-time in the Sculpture department of Glasgow School of Art (1960-65, with Paul Zunterstein), and earlier, when her career had taken her south to England, at St.Albans School of Art (1956-59). At the age of 40 she gave up full-time engineering and in the mid-eighties retired from her part-time post with Britoil in order to sculpt full-time. To her studio in Glasgow was added a property in the far north of Scotland (Scourie, in Sutherland), which was developed to create both another studio space and the Dorothy Dick Gallery; the latter has been open to visitors throughout the summer months since 1989. Dick's sculpture is figurative: carved in wood (sometimes in stone) or modelled in clay and cast, usually in ciment fondu. She carves in the traditional way with mallet and gouges, filing and sanding and finally waxing the surfaces to a soft, matt finish. She uses both native and tropical hardwoods: oak, elm and lime but also iroko, opepe and mahogany, which have a less pronounced grain and a richness of colour. Her sculptures in wood are usually executed to a scale appropriate to domestic interior spaces; her cast works vary and are occasionally scaled for outdoor sites. Dick acknowledges Henry Moore's major influence on her work, but references to African carving are also apparent, for example, in her masks and carved heads. She has exhibited with the Open Eye Gallery, 1979, Henderson's Gallery 1981 (both in Edinburgh); RSA (Edinburgh), RGI (Glasgow), Glasgow Society of Women Artists; Hughson Gallery (solo exhibition 1988) and the Lillie Art Gallery, Glasgow. Her work is in private collections in England, Holland, Switzerland, USA as well as Scotland.