Dod Procter RA NEAC (1890–1972), born Doris Margaret Shaw, was an English artist, elected to the New English Art Club in 1929.

Procter was a prominent member of the Newlyn School, Cornwall, along with her husband Ernest Procter, the painter, illustrator and designer. She is best known for her monumental portraits of female figures on the cusp of womanhood and she became nationally famous for her portrait ‘Morning’ which was exhibited and awarded ‘Picture of the Year’ at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1927. ‘Morning’ was bought for the nation by the Daily Mail and underwent a two-year tour of Britain following its purchase. It now hangs in the Tate, London.

 

Procter and her husband attended art schools in England and in Paris together, where they were both influenced by Impressionism and the Post-Impressionism movements. They also worked together at times, sometimes sharing commissions and other times showing their work together in exhibitions.

 

Early life and education

Doris "Dod" Shaw was born in Hampstead, London in 1890. Her father was a ship's doctor, and her mother was a former art student who had studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. The family moved to Tavistock in Devon, but after the death of her husband, Dod's mother moved the family to Newlyn in 1907. There, at the age of 15, Dod enrolled in the School of Painting run by Elizabeth Forbes and Stanhope Forbes. The Shaws stayed with two other Forbes students, Dod's cousin Cicely Jesse and another woman artist, Tennyson Jesse, in a large townhouse known as Myrtle Cottage. At Forbes, Dod met her future husband, Ernest Procter. They were considered Forbes' star pupils. In Newlyn, Dod met Laura Knight, who became a lifelong friend and a considerable influence on her career.

 

In 1910, Dod and her mother went to Paris where Dod, alongside Ernest Procter, studied at the Atelier Colarossi. Dod and Ernest were both influenced by Impressionism and Post-impressionism and the artists that they met in France, such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne. The couple married in 1912 at the church in Paul in Cornwall and a year later their son Bill was born. The family established a home at North Corner in Cornwall. Also in 1913, Dod Procter first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art.
During World War I, Ernest served in France working with a Friends' Ambulance Unit detachment. The regular letters between the couple show Dod to be depressed at his absence as well as bored and short of money. After the war, the couple settled in Newlyn and this was the Procters' home for most of their working lives.


1920s

In 1920, Dod and Ernest Procter were commissioned to decorate the Kokine Palace in Rangoon by a Chinese millionaire, Ching Tsong. The commission took a year and required them working with Burmese, Indian and Chinese craftsmen often painting murals at considerable heights within the palace. However, Ching Tsong was unimpressed with their work and refused to pay them their agreed fees or provide accommodation, so the Procters painted portraits of local people and members of the British colonial administration for an income. The Procters also created designs for etched crystal.


When she returned to England, Dod Procter began to focus on painting portraits, usually of young women. Throughout the 1920s, she continued to paint single female figures, sometimes nude, others in softly draped clothes. From around 1922, she painted a series of simplified, monumental images of young women of her acquaintance. They were typified by the volume of the figures, brought out by her use of light and shadow.


When ‘Morning’ was displayed at the 1927 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, it was voted Picture of the Year and bought by the Daily Mail for the Tate Gallery, where it now hangs. Procter sold the work for £300 but could have achieved ten times that amount. Prior to its permanent hanging in the Tate, ‘Morning’ was shown in New York, and then on a two-year tour of Britain. A second, smaller version of the painting, known as ‘Early Morning’, is held by the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.


Both public and critics responded to Morning, praising its "sensuous but sombre style" which evoked the west Cornish "silver light". Frank Rutter, art critic of The Sunday Times, said in 1927 that ‘Morning’ was "a new vision of the human figure which amounts to the invention of a twentieth-century style in portraiture" and "She has achieved apparently with consummate ease that complete presentation of twentieth-century vision in terms of plastic design after which Derain and other much-praised French painters have been groping for years past."


Despite this, a number of the nude paintings by Procter that accompanied ‘Morning’ on tour were deemed unsuitable for display by some venues. Also considered controversial was Procter's 1929 submission to the Royal Academy. ‘Virginal’ showed a young female nude holding a dove and when the Academy rejected the painting the story was reported in several national newspapers.


As well as the NEAC and Newlyn School, Procter was a member of the Penwith Society of Arts, became President of St Ives Society of Artists (STISA) in 1946, and was elected a Royal Academician in 1942.


Procter was a lifelong artist, active after the untimely death of her husband in 1935. After Ernest's death, Procter travelled to the United States, Canada, Jamaica, and Africa. She died in 1972 and is buried next to her husband at St Hilary Church, Cornwall.

 


Collections

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK
Glynn Vivan Art Gallery, UK
Laing Art Gallery, UK
New County Hall, Cornwall City Council, UK
Royal Academy of Arts London
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK
Southampton City Art Gallery, UK
The Ingram Collection of Modern and British Contemporary Art, UK
The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, UK
Jerwood Collection, UK
Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum, UK
Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance, UK
Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London
The Box Plymouth, UK
Towenley Gallery and Museum, Burnley, UK
Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, UK

 

This is an edited version of the Wikipedia entry for Dod Procter.

 

View Work

Dod Procter's profile on ArtUK
Dod Procter's profile on the Tate website  
Dod Procter's Royal Academy profile 

Dod Procter profile on the Penlee House Gallery & Museum website

EXHIBITION

Dod Procter's work will feature alongside that of other past members, as well as current members work, in our major exhibition 'Capturing Life: A Century of The New English Art Club' at Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, from 21 January to 11 April 2023.