Dorothea Sharp

Heffel Auction House Biography and Notes

Dorothea Sharp was born in Dartford, Kent in England. She studied at Regent Street Polytechnic school in London under Sir David Murray and the plein air painter George Clausen, before going on to study in Paris where she was influenced by the work of the French Impressionists. Upon her return to London, she became actively involved in the Society of Women Artists in London, exhibiting with them from 1902 on, and at one point became the group's vice-president. She also showed work with the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Paris Salon. Sharp had a permanent base at Blomfield Road, Maida Vale in London, but traveled widely. In the company of the Canadian artist Helen McNicoll, she visited and painted in the artist's colonies at St Ives, England, in Brittany, at Grès-sur-Loing in France and in Italy. This sun-drenched painting is set in the countryside around Cassis, a town on the Mediterranean coast in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southern France. Sharp's training and practice as a plein air painter and her absorption of the Impressionists' use of colour and light brought freshness and spontaneity to paintings such as this. She was also known for her paintings of women and children, and this idyllic scene of mother and child exploring a hillside lush with grass and spring flowers, while surrounded by wandering goats and their young, is an outstanding example of this subject.