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Women Artists early 20th Century Australia Dorothy K Bradford - biographical notes Gael Newton AM last updated 23 June 2025 This is a research page that will be updated as information comes to hand We are looking for a photo of Dorothy Bradford and any information on the location of more of her paintings. This post has relied on several sources. We appreciate any corrections and any updates.   Dorothy Bradford, self portrait  signed DKB c1941   Dorothy K Bradford (1920-2016) My first contact In September 2024 I bought the medium sized painted portrait signed ‘D.K.B’ (above) at Joel’s annual Women Artists Auction in Hawthorn. The caption identified the artist as Dorothy Kathleen Bradford born in Hobart in 1920 but with no death date. This was an unusual purchase for me having almost exclusively dealt in photography for my professional career. I was taken by the self-contained presence of the young woman sitter. Her face is half in shadow, she does not look at the viewer and seems lost in her own thoughts. I liked her thick lustrous hair and the physicality of her body in a close-fitting blush-pink knitted jumper. Some cool green tones in the picture counter the pink and rich flesh tones of her face. Behind her is a dark wood fireplace from the top ledge of which a few zinnias hang down into the upper left of the picture. The portrait is well executed in a modern but not overtly modernist style. The dark wood picture frame may have been put on by the artist as a similar style can be seen in a Bradford portrait titled Eunice and signed ‘D. Bradford 1940’ which has a brighter palette, more simplified forms and a few similar looking zinnias. At the time of writing it was for sale at Lauder and Howard Antiques, Hobart (see link below). This suggests my portrait is perhaps a little earlier. I set to work to find out more about Dorothy Bradford. The Sheding Index lists a few references in publications about Australian women artists and A Catalogue of Australian Paintings and Drawings by the Tasmanian Art Gallery Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 1956, has a short biography for the museum’s then single work by Bradford: An Arts Graduate 1947 - below.  The Museum now has three works by Bradford plus a portrait of Bradford by fellow artist Eileen Brooker (b.1922)1.   Dorothy Bradford: Portrait of an arts graduate 1947     Ellen Brooker, Portrait of Dorothy Bradford, The Tasmanian Museum and Gallery   Portrait by Dorothy Bradford The Tasmanian Museum and Gallery Self-Portrait 1941 The Tasmanian Museum and Gallery     Most entries on Bradford derive from the 1956 Gallery catalogue. However a 2010 book by Tasmanian collectors Don and Maggie Row, Fifty Years of Painting in Tasmania, 1925-1975, is the primary source. This has a substantial biography on Bradford and places her within a mid-20th century modern school of painters in Hobart. The Rows were able to interview Bradford by telephone on 5 December 2006. Their foresight and diligence have preserved an account of Bradford’s career and some suggestions as to why she stopped all art work near the time of her marriage aged thirty-seven in Sydney in 1958. TROVE newspaper searches produced quite a few mentions of Dorothy, her parents and siblings. This included her early success as a music student in Hobart in the early 1930s to her first activities as an art student and exhibitions to her last known activity as an artist with the Tasmanian Group of Painters in 1957. The Tasmanian Museum and Gallery helped with images of their three portraits including a self portrait and one landscape painting by Bradford and a lovely crayon portrait of Bradford by Eileen Brooker. I was too late to speak with Hobart artist George Davis (1930-2024) who had corresponded with Bradford in later life and in 2008 donated a 1941 self-portrait by Bradford to the Tasmanian Art Gallery.   About Dorothy Bradford Dorothy Kathleen Bradford was born 7 November 1920 in Hobart, the eldest child of English mother Daisy Constance nee Wainwright (1891-1978) and Tasmanian solicitor John Perry Bradford (1876-1963)2. John was forty and Daisy twenty-six year when they were married in the bride’s home town Taunton, Somerset (England) on 3 November 1917 by the bride’s father Rev George Wainwright3. Originally born in Kings Norton, Birmingham in 1876 John was the eldest of three sons of Elizabeth Sarah nee Perry (1844-1910) and John Bradford (1849-1890) an accounts clerk. The couple  had married in Hobart in 1874 but were in Birmingham for the birth of John Perry Jr in 1876 and brother Eric in 1878 returning to Hobart by1880 where third son Harold T Bradford (1881-1967) was born. John had joined the AIF on 15 January 1916 and served as a Sergeant then Lieutenant with the 40th then 33rd Infantry Battalions. He was wounded in May 1918. Elizabeth Bradford was an artist and had trained at Birmingham School of Art and possibly Kensington Art School, London4. Elizabeth was exhibiting by 1883. John Bradford Sr’s death in 1890 seems to have prompted Elizabeth to take on art teaching roles at the Hobart Girls High 1891-94 and Hobart Ladies College from February 1891-94 and from home from 1893. By 1892 she was a member of the council of the Art Society of Tasmania and the colouring and lively character of her still life and landscape paintings drew positive critical comment at exhibitions and remained active until 19075. There were most likely quite a few works hanging in the family home but only one painting by Mrs Bradford is known from a 2022 Hobart auction. It appears to be the 1897 Tasmanian Art Society exhibit which the reviewer noted ‘Mrs. Bradford has attempted a very difficult subject in a view from "Hillside", Sandy Bay, and the general effect is good’. The works seems quite lively for in 1897. That year Mrs Bradford hosted a function for visiting Sydney painter A.H. Fullwood.   (Selection of Elizabeth's paintings below this article) Prior to his war service Dorothy’s father John Perry Bradford was well established as a solicitor at 52 Murray Street Hobart in the firm of Eady and Bradford. He returned to Hobart 30 October 1919 with Constance not far behind, as by 7 November 1920 their first child Dorothy Kathleen was born. Their large family home ’Hillside’ 32 Maning Ave, is in the affluent heights of Lower Sandy Bay6. There were three more children; Mary (1922[?]), Sylvia Craig (1930-2022) and Eric John (1925-2014) who became an engineer. JP Bradford was appointed as Secretary to the Public Trustees’ Office and had a prominent place in Hobart society. The mantlepiece seen behind Dorothy in her self portrait of 1941 may have been at “Hillside”.   Constance Bradford also had a place in society and while not an artist was a mezzo soprano and contributed to and hosted various performances. The Bradford home was also used for charitable fundraising functions. All the Bradford siblings appear in newspaper notices for music exams and performances. Dorothy and Sylvia had lessons in music from noted British pianist Madame Helen George apparently a relative to the Bradfords, who had emigrated to Tasmania following a visit in 1925. In Primary school Dorothy, Mary and Eric were prize winners and in December 1933 Dorothy had a prize for general knowledge.   A charming photograph of Dorothy and her sister Mary then both at Hobart Girls School, making daisy chain circles for their hair appeared in the Hobart Mercury on 8 January 1936. They are named as the daughters of JP Bradford, reflecting their social status. However, Dorothy told Don and Maggie Row that at school she only got a credit for art and one other subject and left at fifteen having persuaded her mother she wanted to do art.     top picture: right hand side - Dorothy Bradford painting theatre backdrop   Dorothy and Sylvia Bradford Dorothy Bradford scupture: Dinka woman     Mrs Bradford warned her that artists don’t make much money - perhaps there were family stories about grandmother Elizabeth’s career. Despite her mother’s doubts, Dorothy was able to enrol full time at the Hobart Technical School under painters Lucien Dechaineux whom she recalled fondly and from 1942 Jack Carrington who had come from teaching at East Sydney Technical College. Dorothy also found Mildred Lovett (1880-1955) inspiring the latter taught at Hobart Tech from 1925 to 19407. Dorothy was well established by 1938 when she appeared in the ‘Women’s Realm’ supplement of The Mercury of 23 November, painting a theatre backdrop designed by Phyllis Pitman (1913-2002) a Hobart Technical School graduate who taught there from 1933-43 and fellow student Gene Ashton (aka Gene Audrie Kellock ,(1916-2010) a set designer and theatre performer Dorothy Bradford was awarded her Art Diploma in 1940 and her Applied Art Diploma in commercial art the following year. In 1940 The Mercury of 24 October noted her portraits in the newly formed Tasmanian Group of Painters show were ‘full of promise’. By 1941 it is clear from her Self portrait and that of Eunice 1940 that Bradford had considerable skill and assurance for a modern style of strong design.   Dorothy Bradford, Eunice, 1940 at time of writing, this work was for sale at Lauder and Howard Antiques Hobart   She attracted attention for her personal style, the Launceston Saturday Evening Express Launceston of 20 December 1941 reporting:  Canine Capers Artist Dorothy Bradford is wondering why some people don't train their dogs better. Wearing such a novel and fetching pair of shoes, she was tripping along feeling beautifully light and airy (she was probably evolving some triumph in commercial art as well), when suddenly a vicious little animal (she refuses to even CALL it a dog!> rushed out from nowhere and snapped at one of her snappy shoe ties; and the wretched little so-and so swallowed one of the knobbly acorns, which bobbed up and down so enchantingly as she walked. In 1943 we get another glimpse of Dorothy’s style in comments in the ‘Julie Tells the World A Social Chronicle’ column of the Saturday Evening Express of 13 June: Watch out for -Dorothy Bradford in the near future. ' She should metaphorically annihilate us all with the frock she sat so late to cut out the other night. Rumour has it that Dorothy skipped her art class to make this frock—and it's not rumour but a fact that this young "artist. Possesses some rare and extremely interesting art books. If you ask her very sweetly she'll take you along to her flat and allow you to have a peep at her collection.   A few days later on 16 June the social notes of The Examiner commented: Although Dorothy Bradford. who was the guest for the week-end of Mrs. A T. Barnett, Mowbray, is an artist and a musician, apparently, she has been spending some of her spare time from her optical munitions job with knitting needles. When 1 saw her during the week-end, she was wearing light blue hand-knitted knee length socks. They exactly matched her large blue felt hat’. Dorothy K. Bradford starts to appear in art notices in 1943 with her inclusion in the Tasmanian Group of Painters at Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston among established artists as well as fellow graduates8.   A 1st November notice in The Mercury on the group exhibition at the Tasmanian Gallery lists Bradford as exhibiting a portrait of ‘Peggy’ and a finely designed  plaster cast ‘Dinka Woman and Child. The latter is an interesting choice as the sitter is a Sudanese tribe. A review of 9 October 1947 in the The Mercury on the Tasmanian Group of Painters noted that her portrait of ‘Beryl’ was ‘the embodiment of questing youth, has un-common freshness of tone’. During the war years Dorothy Bradford  had a job draughting at the Optical Munitions Annexe, University of Tasmania, and continued her art studies at Hobart Technical College until 1945. After a brief stint post war in commercial art in Hobart, Dorothy Bradford enrolled at East Sydney Technical College fulltime over 1946-47 then part time in 1948. She gained a Diploma in Art and sent works the Tasmanian Group of Painters show in October 1948. Bradford returned to Hobart in early 1949 and in July The Examiner carried the exciting news that she had won the first Travelling Art Scholarship against seven other candidates:  ART SCHOLARSHIP WORK ON SHOW AN EXHIBITION opening at the Art Gallery today should create considerable interest. It consists of the work of entrants for the Tasmanian Travelling Art Scholarship. The scholarship, won by Miss Dorothy Bradford, is for £700 for two years' study overseas after which the winner must return to Tasmania. Entrants must be under 30 years of age and resident in Tasmania for five years and their work submitted must be done in their own time and not at schools: " The aim of the Government, which sponsors the scheme, is to raise the standard of art and art education in this state by giving promising artists a chance to study overseas. Each of the seven entrants submitted three life drawings, one painting from life, a composition in colour of life and a landscape. The judge was Mr. James Cook, Sydney artist. Mr. V. W. Hodgman, art director at Technical College, saw the paintings being hung yesterday and stated that there was some very good work among them. He said, however, that he was sorry there were no Launceston entrants, but hoped that there would be several for the next scholarship in two years. He predicted a bright future for this year's winner. The Mercury of 29 January noted that the Judge said her work ‘showed breadth of vision, perception, and sensibility.’  The young artist was pictured in The Mercury being congratulated by the Acting Minister for Education on 29 June and on 20 July The Examiner carried a picture of the work by the entrants. In October The Mercury noted that Bradford’s works in the Tasmanian Group of Painters show at the Tasmanian Art Gallery were mainly studies of people. The ‘Arts Graduate’ that her helped win the prize was included and acquired for the Gallery. In 2016 Bradford told Don and Maggie Row that  this was the only painting she ‘remembers anyone praising. I was pleased with it too. It was my best’. Eileen Brooker’s who had also undertaken studies at East Sydney technical College, exhibited a portrait of Dorothy now in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.   Dorothy was not the only talented Bradford for on 25 January 1949. The Mercury reported that:  LUCKY Sylvia Bradford, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Bradford, Sandy Bay.is off to England in the Orcades next Thursday.  Sylvia, who will be accompanied on the trip by her aunt, Madam/ Helen George, Hobart, leaves in a few days for Melbourne to board the liner there. She plans to be away for several years-she will stay in London with relatives for a time, and afterwards she hopes to travel all over England and on the Continent. Madam Helen George will be away about six months, or  so. Sylvia has been entertained at several "bon voyage" .parties, I. hear. Last Saturday Ann Jones hostessed a party in her honour at Hadley's, and at the weekend her sister-in-law, Mrs. E. J. Bradford, Sandy Bay, gave her another. Sylvia is an old girl of Fahan School. On 5 December 1949 The Mercury reported that Dorothy and Sylvia were sharing a flat in London and planned to stay about two years. Dorothy studied at the Royal Academy (November 1949 – June 1951) and Sylvia, not music as might have been expected as she had done well with her studies in Hobart, but studied fashion design in the evening at the Central School of Arts9. Dorothy visited the National Gallery and was overwhelmed. We know nothing of Dorothy’s personal recollections of what must have been an extraordinarily exciting and challenging time. The Mercury reported on 15 June 1951 that she had been granted an extension on her scholarship tenable in Paris and would have a working holiday in the southern counties before departing for Paris. Her flat in Hammersmith was to be taken over by fellow Tasmanians Vi Company and Valeda Griffiths (violinist/ painter). Eileen Brooke (born 1922) had travelled with Valeda and proceeded to study pottery in the Lake District. Brooke and Griffiths arrived 1951 after visiting Italy and France. Griffiths was away until mid 1954. They were joined by their younger contemporary George Davis by April 1952 when The Mercury reported Tasmania House  was showing works by Bradford, Brooker Griffiths and Davis in their display window. Davis had won the second Tasmanian Government Travelling Scholarship and was studying at the Royal Academy. His work was considered the most modern of the group on display. Bradford spent seven months studying fresco painting at the Ecole de Beaux Arts, then eighteen months in Italy including studies at the University of Perugia and work designing posters for the Italian Railways. In London Irene Page had been the correspondent reporting to the Tasmanian papers on the progress of the young artists but no such conduit existed in Italy so there were no reports on Bradford’s time there. One can only imagine it was a wonderful time. On 3 November 1953 The Mercury reported that Dorothy was awaiting a berth in Rome to return home. By November she was exhibiting with the Tasmanian Group of Painters. The Saturday Evening Express in May 1954 reported she had a few weeks holiday at her parent’s seaside cottage at South Arm and was back home in Maning Avenue. The newspaper reports of Bradford’s progress cease and while it is known she worked at the Cadbury’s Art and graphic Design department design department but limited to doing lettering. She and continued exhibiting in Hobart until 1957. On 8 January 1958 at the Registrar General’s Office, Sydney 1958 in Sydney Dorothy Bradford aged thirty-seven married thirty-year old Peter Petras (1928-1994) a painter from Mohora, Nógrád county, northern edge of Hungary bordering Slovakia. Petras had arrived earlier and was naturalized in 1961. Where they met is unknown. The couple lived in Sydney for some years moved to Burleigh Heads Brisbane in the early 1960s. Sons Peter and John born in 1958 and 1960. Both died as young men in 1981 and 1979 respectively. While sister Sylvia’s 1953 marriage in Italy had been reported in Tasmanian papers no notice seems to have been posted. In her last year or so Dorothy was living at Carinity Care, Wooloowin, Brisbane  and died 25 July 2016 in Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Herston. The Rows report that she retained an interest in the arts Dorothy’s will of 2009 indicates no reference to any art works in various legacies to friends and relatives10 including Sylvia Hallett’s daughter Dido, a British painter. Her body was left to the School of Anatomy, University of Queensland. There is no evidence of Bradford exhibiting in Queensland nor indications of why she appears to have given up any art work after her marriage. Her parents were both still alive at the time of her marriage and she was living at Maning Avenue with some support.   For some twenty years as a student and early career artist, art making was Dorothy Bradford’s daily practice and her talent recognised with the Travelling Art Scholarship. Her background would seem to have been comfortable and while exhibiting from her return in 1953 to 1957. No critical mentions of her later work have been found. Among older and younger women Tasmanian associates many continued their practice with varying success. But others including did not. Gene Ashton stopped work in the 1940s. Teaching often provided the economic support for continued practice and that opportunity did not open for Dorothy Bradford. In her last years Bradford was aware of the recognition she was to have in the survey undertaken by Don and Maggie Row and as they report ‘she was at peace with herself’ . But several comments suggest a lack of confidence and a lack of appreciation from family and peers. She told the Rows she had returned from Italy ‘…so keen to paint, especially to paint frescoes, but it never happened.’ She had found a brief stint teaching in a school daunting and perhaps shied away form that path and would have found more opportunity for commercial mural painting to exploit her fresco skills in Melbourne or Sydney but probably had not the means or support or adventurous enough spirit to try that path. Bradford’s descendants contacted to date have not responded with any comments. Perhaps a few more works and some personal background may come to light in future to round out the story of Dorothy Bradford.   Footnotes Eileen Brooker Retrospective Vitual War Memorial link Bradford, John Perry Retired as a Baptist minister, visited Hobart 1917, came to Hobart 1921 and served as first pastor of Sandy Bay Baptist church, dying after a car accident in 1931. History of Hobart Baptist Church 1884-1984 Possibly the Elizabeth Perry who in 1868 as a student at Birmingham School of Art won a book prize, Analysis of Flowers. in the national competition. ‘Mrs Bradford lent a painting in oils from her brush was, the subject being an orange branch with young fruit, also a portfolio of watercolours of native flowers’, ART EXHIBITION AT THE MASONIC-HALL. The Mercury 8 Nov 1893 p.3; ‘Mrs Bradford has exhibited two landscapes, which are neat little bits of work in their way. and show undercurrent of genuine talent on the part of the artist. The lady has treated her subjects evidently without much labor, but the skill of her work comes to the surface all over the canvass’, ‘ART SOCIETY OF TASMANIA’, Tasmanian News 7 Au 1894,p.1; ‘Bradford shows a bold sketch of New Town Creek. The light and shade were harmoniously dealt with, but the vivid colour of the vegetation resembled  that of the old country rather than Tasmania’, ART SOCIETY OF TASMANIA’, The Mercury, 15 Feb. 1895,p.4; ‘ART SOCIETY OF TASMANIA’, The Mercury,  12 Feb.1897, p.4. The home was owned or shared with the family of Reverend George Wainwright, ‘Dorothy Bradford’, Don and Maggie Row, Fifty Years of Painting in Tasmania, 1925-1975, Matroid Publications, Hobart, 2016, pp. 203-204. Tasmanian links - Milded Lovett 1880 - 1955  &     UTAS link C. L. Allport, Winifred Biggins,  Eileen Brooker, H. Buckie, Joseph Conner, Eileen Crow, L. Dechaineux, Marie Dechaineux, Edith Holmes, Mabel Hookey, Rosamond A. McCulloch, Ethel M. Nicholls, Isobel Oldham, Joan Pitman, Phyllis Pitman, Florence Rodway, Carrington Smith, Dorothy Stoner, V. P. Webb, Oliffe Richmond, Robert Campbell, and Florence Jones The Launceston Saturday Evening Express  of 14 November 1953 reported on Sylvia’s marriage in Trieste to Englishman Roger Hallett (1929-2018) then with the British Army. He was a painter from Bristol. The couple spent 1957-60  in Australia. The  marriage lasted until 1993 and Sylvia died in Bristol in 2022. Their daughter Dido Hallett is an artist. The will refers to the executor Peter Filmer, Geebung, QLD, as her sister’s son in law suggesting Mary lived in Queensland. Brother Eric may also have lived in Queensland.     The copyright for Dorothy Bradford may still be with her relatives/ her estate. We cannot supply images nor give permission for their use. The images produced here have been uploaded for research and education reasons. We are keen to let people know about Australian early 20th century woman artists. Hopefully others will also research Dorothy Bradford and her artworks and publish new information on her.     Paintings by Dorothy's Grandmother, Elizabeth Bradford (born 1848 Birmingham England - died 1910 Hobart) Images and details supplied by Maggie Row in 2025   Elizabeth Bradford, Cullen St Queenstown c1898-1903, unsigned and undated Exhibited Art Society of Tasmania 23rd Annual Exhibition February 1907 Private collection     Elizabeth Bradford, Farm Building on Old Mill, Newtown, March 1897, signed lower left  E S Bradford Private collection     Elizabeth Bradford, Mezger's Mill on the New Town Rivulet, March 1897, unsigned and undated Private collection     Elizabeth Bradford, View From Hillside Sandy Bay c1895  'Now Known As Mt Pleasant'     signed  lower left E S Bradford Exhibited: Art Society of Tasmania Quarterly and Old Hobart Exhibition, 1896; Art Society of Tasmania 13th Annual Exhibition, February 1897 Private collection     Elizabeth Bradford, View of Hillside and Mount Wellington c 1880s (probably 1897), unsigned and undated Private collection       Links Lauder and Howard Antiques, Hobart - Dorothy Bradford Portrait for sale Tasmanian Museum and Gallery Joel's Auctions: Womens Art Women artists and photographers on photo-web Biography of Elizabeth Bradford