Bronze on wooden base
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dora-gordine-1189" aria-label="More by Dora Gordine" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Dora Gordine</a>
Javanese Head
Presented by the Hon. Richard Hare 1933
adults
Asian
body
ethnicity
head / face
Indonesian
nationality
people
society
woman
<p>Described by the <span>Evening Standard </span>as ‘a girl sculpture genius’, Gordine travelled to Singapore to work on a commission for the city authorities to produce six sculpted heads representing people of different ethnic backgrounds living in the Malay Peninsula. <span>Javanese Head </span>was modelled there, and its form sits between artistic styles in British art of the period, as the critic Arthur Symons defined, a ‘profound sense of pure form… heedless alike of realism and of exaggerated abstraction’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2016</em></p>
sculpture bronze wooden
3 May 2004 – 30 August 2004
2004-08-30
3 May 2004
2004-05-03
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2004-05-03
Turbine Hall (heads)
Collection based display
10 January 2006 – 19 March 2006
2006-03-19
10 January 2006 – 19 March 2006
2006-03-19
2006-01-10
Ben Uri Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.benuri.org.uk/
27 March 2006 – 20 May 2006
2006-05-20
2006-03-27
Hatton Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
2006-01-10
Embracing the Exotic: Jacob Epstein and Dora Gordine
Loan-out
13 May 2013 – 30 October 2022
2022-10-30
13 May 2013 – 30 October 2022
2022-10-30
2013-05-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-05-13
Gallery 33
Collection based display
Javanese Head
object: 458 × 210 × 275 mm, 11 kg
Presented by the Hon. Richard Hare 1933
<div class="text">
<p>Described by the <i>Evening Standard </i>as ‘a girl sculpture genius’, Gordine travelled to Singapore to work on a commission for the city authorities to produce six sculpted heads representing people of different ethnic backgrounds living in the Malay Peninsula. <i>Javanese Head </i>was modelled there, and its form sits between artistic styles in British art of the period, as the critic Arthur Symons defined, a ‘profound sense of pure form… heedless alike of realism and of exaggerated abstraction’.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-09-06T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N04695</b> JAVANESE HEAD <i>c.</i> 1929–33
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘Dora Gordine  1/8’ on back of neck.
<br/>Bronze, 14 1/4×8 1/4×11 (36×21×28).
<br/>Presented by the Hon. Richard Hare 1933.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Purchased by the donor at the Leicester Galleries 1933.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> Leicester Galleries, July 1933 (5, repr.).
<br/><i>Repr:</i>
R.B.S., <i>Modern British Sculpture</i>, n.d. (1939), pl.40.</p>
<p>From 1929 to 1935 the artist was engaged in decorating the Town Hall at Singapore and travelled around in the Far East, where she found many subjects for <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a>. This head was modelled in Singapore and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> in Paris. Other casts belong to the Council Room of the City Hall, Singapore; Sir Richard Winstedt, London; Mrs Philip Laing, Hurstbourne, Tarrant, Hampshire; and the artist.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, I
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults Asian body ethnicity head / face Indonesian nationality people society woman