Dorothy Wilding
(1893-1976), PhotographerSitter in 30 portraits
Artist associated with 2179 portraits
Dorothy Wilding began her photographic career as an apprentice to Bond Street photographer Marian Neilson. Wilding was the first woman to be appointed as the Official Royal Photographer for the 1937 Coronation and opened a second studio in New York in the same year. She is best known for her brightly lit linear compositions photographed in high key lighting against a white background. Her autobiography In Pursuit of Perfection was published in 1958. Her surviving archives were presented to the National Portrait Gallery by her sister Mrs Susan Morton 1976 and formed the basis of a major NPG retrospective exhibition and catalogue in 1991, The Pursuit of Perfection.
by Dorothy Wilding
cream-toned bromide print on tissue and card mount, mid 1920s
NPG P870(13)
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, 1920s
NPG x27401
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print, 1920s
NPG x44640
by Dorothy Wilding
glossy bromide print, 1920s
NPG x27408
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, 1930s
NPG x27402
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, 1950s
NPG x27406
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, 1950s
NPG x27407
by Dorothy Wilding
contact print from half-plate negative, 1956
NPG x35930
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James J Going
18 August 2015, 22:21
Dear National Portrait Gallery I am attempting to research the life of artists' and photographers' model Rhoda Madge Beasley (1911-1935). There is a well known photograph of her by EO Hoppe taken in 1935. She was also photographed by Dorothy Wilding (2 pictures in the NPG Archives) and painted by several artists and sat for the sculptor Frank Dobson. Sadly, she died very young (she was only 24) in London in December 1935 and it has been difficult to find out any more about her. Given that she was photographed by Dorothy Wilding whose archive is at the NPG it did occur to me there might be materials relating to her or indeed other photographs of her in the Wilding archive. I should be most interested to discover if you think this might be a possibility, and if so how one might take it further. With best wishes, yours sincerely, James J. Going. MD PhD, Consultant Pathologist Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Glasgow.