First Previous 6 OF 30 NextLast

Dorothy Wilding

6 of 30 portraits of Dorothy Wilding

© William Hustler and Georgina Hustler / National Portrait Gallery, London

3 Likes voting
is closed

Thanks for Liking

Please Like other favourites!
If they inspire you please support our work.

Make a donation Close

Dorothy Wilding

by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print, 1930s
8 1/8 in. x 5 7/8 in. (207 mm x 148 mm)
Given by the photographer's sister, Susan Morton, 1976
Photographs Collection
NPG x27403

On display in Room 29 on Floor 1 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sitterback to top

  • Dorothy Wilding (1893-1976), Photographer. Sitter in 30 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 2179 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Dorothy Wilding (1893-1976), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 2179 portraits, Sitter in 30 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Clare Freestone, Yevonde: Life and Colour, 2023 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 22 June to 15 October 2023), p. 68
  • Rideal, Liz, Mirror Mirror: Self-portraits by Women Artists, 2001 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 12 September 2001 to 20 January 2002), p. 73 Read entry

    Dorothy Wilding was born in Gloucester, the youngest of nine children, and at the age of four she was sent to live with her childless aunt and uncle in Cheltenham. This early experience may well account for her determination to become financially independent and well known. Her ambition was to be an actress or a painter but aged sixteen she bought a camera and tripod and became a photographer.

    Wilding moved to London in 1910, becoming an apprentice retoucher in a photographic studio and, having saved enough money, by the age of twenty-one she opened her first portrait studio. This was a success and she moved the business from George Square to Regent Street in 1918, expanding her mainly female staff to seven. Here she consolidated her style of using artificial light, and mounting her portraits first onto tissue, then onto tinted card and finally onto a larger card, which bore her specially designed logo on the reverse. She made a loveless marriage in 1920, divorcing in 1932, and that same year, aged thirty-nine, she married the interior decorator Thomas 'Rufus' Leighton Pearce, who transformed her new Bond Street studio with a clean modernist design. In 1933 she won third prize in the 13th Annual Competition of American Photography and received positive press reviews for her work.

    In 1937 Wilding took the coronation portraits of George VI and his family (she was later to become the first woman photographer granted 'By Appointment' status to the royal family). At the end of the year she moved to New York to open a studio (it was run concurrent with the one in London until 1956 and had a staff of thirty-seven). She operated a huge stand camera by means of a cable release, directing assistants to move lights, attend sitters and arrange poses. This self-portrait gives a good idea of her extrovert, sunny personality. It records an exuberant pose with a flashing smile and indicates the physical scale of her camera. Wilding's clients included Tallulah Bankhead, Gladys Cooper, Yul Brynner, Harry Belafonte, the Zinkeisen sisters and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The trademark white studio blocks that she used as abstract counterpoints to her sitters' poses became highly fashionable. She again took the royal portraits on Coronation Day and studies from her 1952 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II were used for stamps and coinage. In 1958 her autobiography, In Pursuit of Perfection, was published, and she sold her business. The National Portrait Gallery holds over 900 of her original negatives and prints presented by her sister and studio manager Mrs Susan Morton in 1976.

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.

Comments back to top

We are currently unable to accept new comments, but any past comments are available to read below.

If you need information from us, please use our Archive enquiry service . Please note that we cannot provide valuations. You can buy a print or greeting card of most illustrated portraits. Select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Buy a Print button. Prices start at around £6 for unframed prints, £16 for framed prints. If you wish to license an image, select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Use this image button, or contact our Rights and Images service. We digitise over 8,000 portraits a year and we cannot guarantee being able to digitise images that are not already scheduled.