Dorrit Black

The cover of John Whiteoak’s book Take Me to Spain is by the South Australian artist Dorrit Black (1891–1951). Having studied at art schools in Adelaide and Sydney in 1927 Black travelled to London and spent three months at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, where Claude Flight specialised in colour linocut printing. Black’s interest in jazz at this time can be seen in her well-known linocut Music, dated 1927/28. Argentina (the Spanish dancer), on the cover of Whiteoak’s book, dates from about 1929, when she was studying in Paris. A major exhibition of Black’s paintings and linocuts was held at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2014, curated by Tracey Lock.

Dorrit Black, Music, 1927/28. Art Gallery of South Australia.