Frank Owen Dobson

1 portrait

© Cecil Beaton Archive / Condé Nast

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Frank Owen Dobson

by Cecil Beaton
bromide postcard print on album page, 1930
5 3/8 in. x 3 1/8 in. (138 mm x 79 mm)
Accepted in lieu of tax by H.M. Government and allocated to the Gallery, 1991
Photographs Collection
NPG x40983

Sitterback to top

  • Frank Owen Dobson (1886-1963), Sculptor. Sitter in 18 portraits, Artist or producer of 8 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), Photographer, designer and writer. Artist or producer associated with 1114 portraits, Sitter associated with 360 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This image is one a number that were taken while the photographer, Cecil beaton, was sitting to Frank Dobson for his portrait. Dobson is shown in his Chelsea studio with the unfinished plaster head of Beaton, who recorded the sitting in his diary: 'I had a pleasant afternoon at Frank Dobson's studio, sitting for my almost completed bust. It doesn't look anything like me, but I didn't say so. Afterwards I pottered about among the discarded plaster casts, unearthing heads of Tallulah [Bankhead, the actress], Osbert [Sitwell] and Lopokova [Lydia Lopokova, the ballerina].'

Placesback to top

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1930back to top

Current affairs

Amy Johnson is the first woman to fly solo to Australia. She flew the 11,000 miles from Croydon to Darwin in a De Havilland Gipsy Moth named Jason and won the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE for her achievement. She went on to break a number of other flying records, and died while serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941.

Art and science

Noel Coward's play, Private Lives is first performed. The original run starred Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier as well as Coward himself. Private Lives became Coward's most enduringly successful play.

International

Gandhi leads the Salt March. The march to the coast was a direct protest against the British monopoly on the sale of salt and inspired hordes of Indians to follow him and adopt his methods of Satyagraha (non-violent resistance to the British rule of India).
Stalin orders the 'liquidation of the kulaks (wealthy farmers) as a class' in a violent attempt to centralise control of agriculture and collectivise farming.

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