One of my favourite places (just) in London is Dorich House which sits on the south side of Richmond Park, between Kingston and Roehampton. Built in 1936 it’s the brainchild of a remarkable woman sculptor, Dora Gordine.
Gordine was a creator on all fronts, not only with clay and bronze but with the materials of her own life. Her prosperous Russian Jewish family was fragmented by the 1917 revolution and following civil war. She left for Paris, part of the twentieth century’s first wave of refugees. Like so many driven into exile Gordine used the experience as a way to re-invent herself.
With a shrewd understanding of PR Gordine presented herself as a romantic, ‘exotic’ White Russian exile. Determined to succeed as a sculptor she seems to have thrown herself into the art world and deliberately cast aside any ties to her remaining family. By the early 1930s she was living in Singapore and working on a series of sculptures commissioned by the British authorities for the city’s new Municipal Buildings. Interviewed by the Straits Times newspaper Gordine said vaguely that the “Bolshevik scourge” had scattered her family all over the world although it’s quite likely she was aware that her brother Leopold was living quietly in London.
The creation of Dorich House was made possible by Gordine’s second marriage to Richard Hare, a British aristocrat who had the money and the devotion to his wife’s vision of herself and what she could be to bring the whole project to fruition. Some places embody the personalities of those who created them and Dorich House – the name an amalgamation of Dora and Richard – does this to perfection. It’s a red brick building with the soaring dimensions of a cathedral or medieval fortress. The tall, narrow windows like arrow-slits on the ground and first floors emphasise its defensive aura. This part of the house was used as a gallery and studio and Gordine designed the windows to let in light but limit the view, ensuring the focus was turned inward towards her sculptures.
As soon as you enter Dorich House you are surrounded not only by Gordine’s sculptures but by her taste in interior decoration and fastidious attention to detail. The polished dark-wood floors seem to act as extra form of illumination, reflecting rays of light onto sculpted heads and torsos.
One of the pleasures of Dorich House is being able to see sculptures in a non-museum setting, up close, free from display cases and with 360 degree access. Gordine worked a lot with bronze and here it’s possible to see the many different finishes she coaxed from the material, from a smooth conker-brown shine to a much rougher speckled green that has an almost sponge-like texture.
I think Gordine does a particularly good female figure, robust and curvaceous with powerful thighs and a sultry, nipped-in waist. The sway of their hips and arms show how much she was influenced by the sculpture she saw when she lived in south-east Asia.
The top floor of Dorich House consists of the flat where Gordine and Hare lived together for 30 years until his death in 1966. Hare’s presence is strongest in this part of the house – he was a professor of Russian literature and one wall displays his collection of icons, including a Virgin of Kazan gazing out from behind a jewelled silver cover. There is a roof terrace where visitors can go to look out on Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common.
The three floors of Dorich House are linked by a rather steep wooden staircase with a neat recessed banister rail, another example of Gordine’s flair for design. A photograph of her standing on the stairs seems to sum up her approach to life and art. Impeccably dressed with her hair in a chignon and a kiss-curl coiled on each cheek she looks utterly in command of the story she is telling.
Dorich House has open days once a month. The next two open days are on 29 January and 26 February 2010 from 11am to 5pm. Admission is £4. If you’re lucky you may meet the curator, Brenda Martin, who knows masses about Gordine and the house. She collaborated with Jonathan Black to produce a book, Dora Gordine: Sculptor, Artist, Designer.
Photo of Dorich House interior by Brenda Martin
