Dorothy Brett (1883-1976)

Photo by Mildred Tolbert
Photo by Mildred Tolbert
Partial List of Collections

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos NM
Harwood Museum of Art, Taos NM
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM
Rosewell Museum & Art Center, Roswell, NM
Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo NY

Selected Exhibitions

Corcoran Gallery, 1932; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1950; University of Illinois, 1953; American-British Art Club, 1950;

Dorothy Brett at 203 Fine Art

Please follow the links below to view exhibition catalogues featuring works by Dorothy Brett.

Taos Moderns in Santa Fe | 2019 Exhibition Catalogue on ISSUU

 

Biography

Born in England to an aristocratic family, Dorothy Brett led a sheltered early life. In 1910, she began study at the Slade School of Art in London where she became associated with the Bloomsbury group, a coterie of English writers, philosophers, and artists.

Among the people she met in London was novelist D. H. Lawrence, who had traveled to Taos in 1923 at the behest of patron of the arts Mabel Dodge Luhan, who was responsible for introducing many artists and writers to the area. Indulging in a dream of beginning a utopian community in New Mexico, Lawrence returned to England in attempt to persuade friends and colleagues, but it was Dorothy Brett alone who accepted his offer.

The following year, Dorothy Brett, D.H. Lawrence, and his wife Frieda arrived in Taos and stayed at Mabel Dodge Luhan's home. Later, Luhan gave Dorothy Brett and D.H. Lawrence 160 acres on her ranch twenty miles north of Taos. Brett resided in the smaller of two cabins and helped with carpentry and typing in addition to attending to her painting. After the Lawrences left in 1925, Brett lived alone on the ranch in poverty for several years. She survived by selling her paintings of Pueblo Indians to tourists.

Over time, Brett's work took on a more mystical quality. She was the first Taos artist to defend the transcendental painter, Emil Bisttram, and she must have felt a connection with his theosophy-inspired aesthetic. She was initially too hesitant to depict the rituals that fascinated her, although they would eventually become her primary subject. Her later pieces are characterized by a stylization that suggests the rhythms of the dances and chants.

Schools of Study

Slade School of Art in 1910-1916

Sources:
Further Reading: The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1976.; Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, Patricia Trenton, Ed., Published for the Autrey Museum of Western Heritage by the University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles, California, 1995.

Selected Works in Our Inventory