Dorothea Maclagan
Born in Greenock, she studied at the Byam Shaw and Cole School of Art between 1914 and 1917. She then studied for five years at the Royal Academy Schools where her tutors included Sir George Clausen and Ernest Jackson.
While at the Academy Schools she won a silver medal for drawing, the Armitage Prize, the Landseer Prize and the Landseer Scholarship.
She kept a studio in London throughout the 1920’s and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the Royal Portrait Society and the New English Art Club as well as in the provinces and in Sweeden and Holland. Amongst her close artist friends were Glyn Philpot, Vivian Forbes and John Nash.
During the 1930’s she moved to Meadle in the Vale of Aylesbury where she made a garden and began to specialise more in botanical work. After the was she had one-woman shows in Cambridge and at Dartington Great Hall. She continued to exhibit regularly in London and exhibited more than 40 paintings at the Royal Academy during her career.
Her highly sensitive work, often on a small scale reflects the influence of her thorough classical training. She delighted in ‘concentrated’ work and botanical painting and her meticulous watercolour style and precise observation. Her figure studies whilst possessing great academic skill also reveal a subtle and human tenderness.
