I’ve been working with volunteers at Dorich House Museum, the studio home of sculptor Dora Gordine & Richard Hare, on The Squatter Years: Recovering Dorich House Museum’s Recent Past. The project launched last summer, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Volunteers have been busy during lockdown, researching and investigating the extent of the couple’s art collection. Many items were stolen during a burglary in 1988, and much that remained was sold at auction, so volunteers have used auction catalogues, New Scotland Yard documents, and archive photographs to piece the collection together.
They are now writing about the objects they have found, bringing their stories to life once again. We discussed ways to do this during a recent virtual workshop, and the project will culminate in an online exhibition.
In the 1940s, Dora Gordine’s Happy Baby sculpture, the reclining bronze figure of a small child, took center space in Holloway Prison’s infirmary.
