Widely considered one of the doyennes of late twentieth-century British photography, Dorothy Bohm was born Dorothea Israelit in Germany in 1924. Sent to the safety of England in 1939, she attended school in Sussex and studied photography in Manchester before setting up her own portrait studio there. In the late 1940s, inspired by a visit to the artists’ colony of Ascona in the Ticino, Switzerland, she started working outside the studio, capturing moments in ordinary lives with profound humanity and an instinctive eye for composition. Her first exhibition was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, in 1969, where she met Roland Penrose, who memorably commented that ‘her camera does not only see, it also feels.’ In the early 1970s Dorothy was involved with the founding of The Photographers’ Gallery in London, where alongside founder Sue Davies, she helped introduce a British public to the great names of contemporary photography, as well as to nurture the careers of younger photographers.
In the mid-1980s Dorothy abandoned black and white photography for colour, infusing her images with texture and spatial ambiguity to convey humanity in increasingly abstract and allusive forms. Dorothy Bohm died in March 2023 at the age of nearly 99. She had continued to take photographs until her early nineties.
Farley House and Gallery commented: 'We are delighted to exhibit About Women at the Lee Miller Gallery, a show that features a significant number of delightful images taken in Sussex in the 1960s and 1970s. This important exhibition includes both black and white, and colour photographs. Taken across the world over many decades with women as their subject, they capture moments in ordinary lives with profound humanity and an instinctive eye for composition. When asked, Dorothy stated: “I think of women as the most natural subjects for me.” The exhibition title is taken from her book About Women, which was first published 2015 and is still in print. Dorothy’s images of women are always intensely empathetic and, at times, reveal an astute, implicitly critical, awareness of the male gaze.'
Dorothy Bohm - About Women
Farleys House & Gallery, Chiddingly, East Sussex, BN8 6HW.
Open: Thursday, Friday, Sunday & selected Saturdays, April-October 1000- 1630
See: https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/
Image: Dorothy Bohm, Goodwood. © Estate of Dorothy Bohm.
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