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Gerald Leslie Brockhurst
OPHELIA (Jeunesse Dorée / Golden Youth - the artist's mistress / second wife)

1942

About the Item

This elegant etching titled the gilded youth is of the second wife of the artist The edition is 75 and is referenced as Fletcher #80 Gerald Brockhurst is best known for his portraits of glamorous women, including film stars such as Marlene Dietrich. This etching depicts his mistress Kathleen Nancy Woodward, who became his second wife in 1947. The title of this portrait, Ophelia, references the tragic heroine from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Grief-stricken by the death of her father and Hamlet’s rejection of her, Ophelia falls into a brook and drowns. Rather than portraying Ophelia as a vulnerable or insane woman, as most artists of the period did, Brockhurst depicts her gazing confidently at the viewer. He achieved a rich tonality through the use of dense crosshatching and employed tiny dots and dashes to give the face and hands a soft, radiant quality. Painter, etcher, draughtsman and teacher. Born Edgebaston, Birmingham. At the age of 12 admitted to the Birmingham School of Art, 1901, winning a place at the Royal Academy Schools in 1907 from which he was awarded a gold medal and a travelling scholarship. He visited Paris and Italy, studying the Quatrocento painters, whose influence was central to his development - he was famed for his polished painting technique. After a one-man show at the Chenil Gallery in 1919 he concentrated on etching for the next ten years, elected to the Royal Society of Painters - Etchers, 1923 (RE), and to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1923. Royal Academician, 1937. Colnaghi published his work, and for many years gave an impression of any print of his to the BM. After a huge scandal and an affair with a young model, in 1939 he left for New York and later settled in New Jersey, where lived until his death. He became established as a sought after portrait painter whose models included the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich and J.Paul Getty. His reputation which had rather faded in Britain was revived by an exhibition, 'A Dream of Fair Women' which toured the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, the City of Birmingham Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, London,1986-7. The Fine Art Society held an exhibition, 'Gerald Brockhurst 1890-1978' in 2011. His work is held in several public galleries including: Sheffield, Oxford, Birmingham and the Tate Gallery.
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