Dorothy Brett

Born in London, England, to a wealthy family with ties to royalty, she became a noted long-time resident artist of Taos, New Mexico. She grew up in the court of Queen Victoria and took dancing lessons with the Queen's grandchildren. She saw her first American Indian when she was age five attending a performance in London of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. She determined to be an artist, which was counter to her parent's social expectations of her, and she enrolled in the Slade School of Art in 1910 and graduated six years later. Titled the "Honorable Dorothy Brett," she also attended University College.

She began painting portraits of English celebrities including novelist D.H. Lawrence, and she went to Taos with him and his wife in 1924. It was supposed to be a short visit, but she remained, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1938. She began painting Indian genre but was hesitant because her background was academic landscape and portrait painting. Her first Indian depiction was a rabbit hunt. She became a close associate of socialite/artist Mabel Dodge Luhan, and she and Luhan and Frieda Lawrence became such close friends and fixtures of society in Taos that they were known as the "Three Fates." They were marked by their attachment to D.H. Lawrence. Nearly deaf, she had a brass ear trumpet that she called Tobey, a long contraption with a slit at the end.

Her painting style is primitive, and her expressions of Indian life were romanticized.

Submitted by 203 Fine Art