Dorothy Dodds sketchbooks rediscovered!
Dorothy Eleanor Dodds was born on 29.5.1897 in Johannesburg.
Her parents (James Bowmakeer-Dodds and Jacoba Maria, née Auret) recognised her unusual talent and decided to give her an excellent education in England.
From the age of 13 Dorothy went to school in England and then studied at the London Polytechnique School of Art (Bronze Medal School, 1915)
During 1917 - 1918, she worked as draughts-man in the British Ministry of Munitions.
On her return to South Africa she held a post as a commercial artist with the South African Advertising Corporation. She then became freelance and concentrated chiefly on South African fynbos flowers.
A member of the S.A. Society of Artists, she exhibited watercolours and pastels at their exhibitions for many years.
She was commissioned by Prof. Rycroft for panels of wildflowers, which were hung in the pavilion of the Western Cape at the Van Riebeeck Festival 1952.
Later Dr Rourke saw her sketchbooks and was enchanted with her work, but said there were not enough varieties to warrant publishing them in a text book. It is a pity that it was not possible at the time to combine her and other illustrator's work of different species in a guide book of flowers of the Western Cape.
Dorothy Dodds lived at 22 Hill Rd., Strand and later moved to Paarl, where she died on 28th November 1976.
Watercolours by Dorothy E. Dodds
© Anne Labuschagne
Up
Books
www.StellenboschArtists.com