TCP-M/J 04 - The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada

graphic portraits of the last century.
Her autobiography In Pursuit
of Perfection was published in
1958. Her surviving archives
were presented to the National
Portrait Gallery (London) by her
sister Mrs. Susan Morton in 1976.
They formed the basis of a major
NPG retrospective exhibition and
catalogue in 1991 with the same
title, The Pursuit of Perfection.
She married twice. In 1920, at
age 24, she married Walter
Portham, a 49-year-old leather
merchant. The marriage was in
effect a father-daughter relationship
and they were divorced in
1932. Portham died of a heart attack
during the Second World
War. Her second marriage, in
1932, was to a long time friend,
the interior decorator, painter
and Mayfair architect, Thomas
‘Rufus’ Leighton Pearce. They
had no children.
Wilding retired in 1958 by this
time her style of portraiture had
become unfashionable. In her
later years she concentrated on interior
decoration. After a long illness
she died on 9 February 1976
at the age of 83. Her death was
noted in the Deaths, In
Memoriam column of
the Daily Telegraph, but
not a single obituary
was published.
LITERATURE:
Jane Richards, in The
Independent Magazine,
29 June 1991, writes:
“Never a beauty, short and
stocky, she wore horn-rimmed
glasses and a black beret, she
seems to have used photography
as a projection of her own female
ideal”. Tallulah Bankhead is said
to have declared, “This is the
woman who made my name in
London with her beautiful photographs
of me,” to which Wilding
replied, “And this is the woman
who made my name with her
beautiful head. “
Terence Pepper, Dorothy Wilding: The Pursuit of
Perfection, National Portrait Gallery Publications, 1991
and various other articles.
Wilding’s portraits have been
used on a number of British and
Commonwealth stamps. The first
Canadian one was the 1939 Royal
Visit stamp with the pictures of
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
The same photographs had
been used on the Coronation
stamp of Great Britain as well as
the Newfoundland 1939 Royal
Visit issues. After the end of the
war it was decided to produce
stamps showing the King in civilian
clothes rather than military
uniform, and Wilding portraits
were used for the 1949 definitive
series. I am not sure where the
King’s portrait on the 1948 Responsible
Government stamp
originated, but it looks very similar
to the 1949 definitive series
portrait facing left. The 1947
Royal Wedding stamp marking
the wedding of Princess Elizabeth,
the present Queen, is taken
from a Wilding portrait. The first
definitive stamps of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth II, 1953, used a
picture based on a Karsh photograph.
These were replaced in
1954 with the Wilding definitives
which in turn were replaced in
1962 by the Cameo issue. Detailed
descriptions of the earlier
Canadian stamps can be found in
Canada’s Postage Stamps by Douglas
and Mary Patrick.
Self-portrait 1956
Courtesy of the National Portrait
Gallery, London.
In Great Britain Wilding portraits
have been used to mark
royal anniversaries, the Silver
Wedding issue of 1948, the
Queen’s 60th Birthday, the Queen
Mother’s 90th Birthday, reissued
as a mourning stamp, and the 50th
Anniversary of the Queen’s Accession.
Recently the Wilding definitives
have been reissued in Great
Britain with values in pence.
Other Commonwealth countries
have also used Wilding portraits
on stamps. The first
Wilding picture of the Queen,
then Princess Elizabeth, with her
sister Princess Margaret Rose in
Girl Guide uniforms appeared
on the 1944 New Zealand health
issue. The 1947 Royal visit to
Southern Africa was
marked by stamps of
South Africa, that were
also overprinted SWA
for South West Africa
(Namibia), Basutoland
(Lesotho), Bechuanaland
Protectorate (Botswana),
Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
and Swaziland. Australia used
Wilding portraits on the 1953 definitive
issues, the 1954 Royal
Visit, as well as on other stamps.
Many of the Commonwealth
countries had a common stamp
design, some with Wilding portraits
such as the 1948 Silver
Wedding and the 1953 Coronation
issues.
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