Charles St John Hornby

Charles St John Hornby
Dora Gordine
Bronze cast by Claude Valsuani
2000.044

Charles Henry St John Hornby (1867–1946) operated the Ashendene Press, the third great English private press after William Morris’s Kelmscott Press and T. J. Cobden Sanderson’s Doves Press. The Ashendene Press archives, complete output, and Hornby’s 1853 Royal Albion hand press were purchased by Bridwell Library from Hornby’s son in 1976.

Dora Gordine (1895–1991) was born in Latvia, and raised in Estonia and Russia. She studied music and art in Paris, where she became acquainted with sculptor Aristide Maillol. Painted mural in the British Pavilion at the Decorative Arts Exhibition, 1925. Exhibited at the Beaux Arts Society and the Salon des Tuileries. Sculpted bronzes for the Singapore City Hall. Solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, London, 1928. Represented in the Tate Gallery. Married to Richard Gilbert Hare, son of the Fourth Earl of Listowel, in 1936, the connection bringing commissions of portraits of London society notables.