Gerald Brockhurst

Born in 1890 in Birmingham, he entered the Birmingham School of Art at the age of twelve displaying superb drawing skills. He went on to attend the Royal Academy Schools where he won the gold medal and scholarship in 1913. Though he tried his hand at etching in 1914 it was not until 1920 that he began his career as an etcher in earnest. Most of his etchings were versions of his oil paintings. He used his first wife Anais as the model for most of his early etchings of young womanhood (especially from 1920 till 1934). After falling in love with a sixteen year old model named Dorette and divorcing Anais, negative public opinion forced him to leave England, especially after his most famous etching, called Adolescence, the image of Dorette sitting naked before her bedroom mirror, was shown at the Royal Academy in 1933. He became quite popular in the 1930s and 1940s as a portrait artist, painting well-known society figures. He died in New Jersey in 1978.