Notes

What sets Dorothy Kay's painting apart from many of her contemporaries is the presence of the unapologetically human condition. Figures, no matter how dwarfed by the subject, are usually included in Dorothy’s compositions. She proudly laid claim to being the only figure painter in South Africa.¹

In Fish Market, Port Elizabeth, Kay has tackled her subject in a typically forthright manner. Such plebeian scenes were deemed ‘not beautiful’ by a public who preferred landscapes and views which were less challenging. As an artist she remained undeterred, and wrote: “Landscape painting, I have always felt, can be done by anyone, and it has never interested me much;” she also considered that views were “a limitation”.²

She painted and drew from the things she knew well and the subjects she portrayed revealed their humanity and personality which still reach out from her canvasses today.

¹ Reynolds, Marjorie. Everything you do is a Portrait of Yourself: Dorothy Kay, a biography, pp, Rosebank, 1989, page 38
² Ibid, page 39

Exhibited

Eastern Province Society of Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Port Elizabeth, 1922

The Constantia Gallery, Johannesburg

Literature

Reynolds, Marjorie. Everything You Do is a Portrait of Yourself: Dorothy Kay, a biography. Rosebank, 1989, exhibition details on page 138, 453 and 456