Anthony Michael Dorrell Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1923 - d. 1987

Anthony Michael Dorrell was born in Clerkenwell in 1923. At the age of 11 he won a scholarship to Walthamstow Art School and subsequently trained at St Martins. When war broke out, he was found medically unfit for military service and he worked as a free-lance commercial artist, painting in his spare time.

His conviction that the artist had a contribution to make to society and must speak through his chosen medium, led him to work for many years with artists connected with the labour movement, including on a mural for the foyer of London’s Unity Theatre.

In later years he travelled in Europe and China, returning with numerous paintings and drawings of the places he had visited. In 1963 he settled with his family in Berkshire, teaching art and giving WEA and university extension lectures. Canvases of the Berkshire countryside date from that period, as do portraits, further paintings of China, and paintings of France which he visited often.

In the mid-seventies the family moved to London and after a number of years of working in makeshift studios, he managed to rent a studio at Wapping Wall. To him this was a sort of homecoming to London’s East End with which many of his childhood memories were associated. Here he produced paintings and drawings of London streets and the river, portraits, and part of the Europe series. He continued to add to that series as long as the emphysema from which he suffered allowed him to work on a large scale and he also contributed to various exhibitions, including Artists in Tribute to the Miners’ Struggle and Art for Society.

As the family’s financial situation improved, he was able to devote himself full-time to painting. In 1978 he moved to Cambridge. There he joined the Cambridge Arts and Leisure Association (CALA), the brainchild of Linda Youngman, which provided him with a studio and an opportunity to meet and to work with other artists. When CALA was wound up in the early eighties, he moved with his family to a house with a separate studio. By then, however, the disease that finally killed him was causing increasingly frequent interruptions with long spells in hospital. During his Cambridge period he nevertheless produced some of his best work, including the fenland series entitled Black Earth, and further additions to the Europe series. He died at a time when his powers as a painter were at their height and he had numerous plans for further work.