Notes

Dorothy Kay, née Elvery, was born at Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1886. At the age of 14 she began studying figure painting at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the Royal Hibernian Academy School, and later in Paris. She came to South Africa in 1910 to marry Dr Hobart WA Kay FRCS who later became District Surgeon of Port Elizabeth.

Her exhibitions included the Royal Hibernian Academy (1902), the Young Irish Artist’s Exhibition (1902), the British Empire Exhibition in London (1924), the Royal Academy Exhibition in London (1940), numerous international and local exhibitions as well as a retrospective at the South African National Gallery in 1982.

Kay’s training laid the foundations for her sound draughtsmanship and assured skill in figure painting. She was a much sought-after portraitist, receiving numerous portrait commissions from private sitters as well as 23 mayoral portraits commissioned by the city of Port Elizabeth. It was very gratifying then that her excellence was recognised at Strauss & Co’s inaugural auction in March 2009 when a record price of R1 448 200 for the artist.

Here the artist has consciously posed herself in front of what is regarded as her greatest painting, The Elvery Family (A Memoir), now housed in Iziko South African National Gallery’s permanent collection and selected for the cover of her retrospective exhibition catalogue. That complex group portrait painted in 1934 featured many family members and included an image of the artist carrying a large blank canvas and dressed in the same striped scarf in which she appears here. With the Elvery family behind her in this portrait, she has chosen not only to contextualise herself within her Irish ancestry and her South African family but is also reflecting on the cultural milieu that gave rise to her development as an artist.

In a letter dated August 10th 1950 Kay states “I got so inspired with all the good old days painting – with its craftsmanship & real painting & modelling, that I started one of myself – meaning it to be old fashioned & like a photograph”.¹ Another letter dated 14th August includes some reflections on painting, “Good observation alone must be of some value, & to be able to put it down, an added value ... good solid honest straightforward work can have a lot ... some intensity of purpose it is that seems to count most” [underlined by the artist].²

Kay’s unsparing criticism and humour are evident in her comments, as inscribed on the back of one of her photographs of the finished painting, “eyes a bit enlarged by glasses – possibly too far apart? not (sic) an overstatement – must one overstate? Over to you –".³ The artist clearly invites viewers to reach their own conclusions. Can her superb draughtsmanship, her mastery of paint, her ability to capture a likeness or her skill in conveying multiple meanings be faulted? You be the judge.

1. Marjorie Reynolds, "Everything you do is a portrait of yourself" Dorothy Kay: A Biography, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, page 227.

2. Ibid, pages 228-229.

3. Ibid, page 231.
 

Literature

Marjorie Reynolds, Dorothy Kay, Everything You Do Is A Portrait Of Yourself, A Biography, 1989, page 230, illustrated