Art Guide at The Dorchester

Art
Guide
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Standing tall in the heart of London’s Mayfair,
The Dorchester has long been a treasured
British landmark, forever evolving with the
city around it, forever celebrating the very
finest of our rich cultural treasures.
In honour of the hotel’s lasting impact on
the city and its visitors, The Dorchester’s
extensive art collection is a rambunctious
adventure through the very British artistic
tradition of landscapes.
Curated by Visto and exclusively featuring
works by artists working in Britain,
the fascinating techniques on display at
The Dorchester welcome the gaze with
intrigue and surprise, igniting conversations
that wonder at the beauty around us,
ever-changing and always resplendent.

ARTISTS
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Jill Berelowitz
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Helen Ballardie
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Sophie Coryndon
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Oliver Clare
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Christian Furr
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Helen Sear
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Sue Williams A’Court
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Rachel Dein
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Gordon Cheung
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Amanda Richardson
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Anna Masters
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ARTISTS
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Rosie Sanders
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Ewan Eason
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Eleanor Watson
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Melanie Goemans
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Michelle McKinney
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Maria Rivans
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Ann Carrington
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Sue Arrowsmith
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Amy Judd
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Jake Frame
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The
Forecourt
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THE FORECOURT
‘THE DORCHESTER SPHERE’,
CAST BRONZE
Jill Berelowitz
The Dorchester Sphere is a new sculpture by
Jill Berelowitz, commissioned by Dorchester Collection
to celebrate her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s
Platinum Jubilee. This new work is a majestic,
imposing sculpture of a globe. Cast in bronze,
it’s shaped into an abstract interpretation of the
earth, organic and sophisticated in equal measure.
The globe’s surface is covered in an organic relief
of the world’s land masses, with an inscription upon
its equator which reads:
‘The Dorchester stands tall as a
cherished landmark of our times,
an enduring keeper of London’s
bold spirit and a welcome home
for those who make the world turn’.
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The
Lobby
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THE LOBBY
HONEYCOMB CASTS,
GOLD LEAF AND RESIN
Sophie Coryndon
We begin our stroll through the English garden at
the check-in desk, where the welcome is as golden
as the art. Here, on the right-hand side of the lobby,
Sophie Coryndon’s wall sculpture transforms the
miniature into the monumental in a celebration
of nature’s vital plant pollinators.
Having always been fascinated by bees and the
golden honeycomb they produce, Sophie and her
team took fragments of comb and cast them into
larger fragments, joining them together to form
huge sheets of beeswax. These were used as moulds
to cast plaster, which were then gilded and joined
together. For a final flourish, the individual cells
are filled with resin, tinted to match the honey made
from different species of trees found in Hyde Park.
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THE LOBBY
OIL ON CANVAS
Christian Furr
The youngest artist ever commissioned for an
official portrait of her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,
Christian Furr is dedicated to rejuvenating oil painting
as a fresh, contemporary medium.
On the left-hand side of the lobby, Furr’s grand
oil painting invites us into a timeless landscape
at the edge of the Serpentine, in our neighbouring
Hyde Park. While at first glance it’s a classic
scene, on closer inspection the characters hidden
in the details are thoroughly modern – and in
the foreground you’ll see The Dorchester Rose,
created especially for us.
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The
Promenade
Lounge
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THE PROMENADE LOUNGE
GRAPHITE ON PAPER
Sue Williams A’Court
In this series of four graphite drawings,
contemporary painter Sue Williams A’Court focuses
on individual trees rather than the wider landscape
they’d usually be shown in. Each tree is depicted in a
portrait style to reveal its unique identity and details.
By breaking the boundaries between our understanding
of landscapes and portraiture, these works leave us
free to reconsider the meaning of both.
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The
Promenade
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THE PROMENADE
‘THE GARDEN IN FULL BLOOM’,
MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS
Gordon Cheung
A still life painting explodes into a feast of bright
colours and textures, ripe with modern and
unexpected twists, from the newspaper print in
the background to the three-dimensional blooms.
Gordon Cheung is renowned for his epic,
hallucinogenic landscapes constructed using an
array of media – including digitally manipulated
imagery, spray paint, acrylic, inkjet, and
woodblock printing.
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THE PROMENADE
ASSEMBLAGE OF DRIED PETALS
AND DECORATIVE BUTTERFLIES
Anna Masters
Anna Masters’ delicate, three-dimensional artworks
incorporate symbols of transience and change – such
as the flowers and vintage decorative butterflies
used in this piece. Seemingly swept up by the wind,
its elements are painstakingly mounted within an
invisible structure. Preserved as if in a botanical
study, they come together to create a dazzling
moment of renewed life.
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THE PROMENADE
MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS
Helen Ballardie
This garden landscape, seen from above, shines
with the light of a summer’s day. What began as
a photograph of a view from a window has been
transformed by artist Helen Ballardie through multiple
layers of oil paint into an abstraction; a memory
of a feeling more than a document of reality. Yet the
work also incorporates fragile pressed flowers,
integrated into the painted surface, returning us
to the tangible landscape.
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THE PROMENADE
OIL ON CANVAS
Oliver Clare
With its small scale, this traditional still life painting
draws the viewer into its detailed world. Here, all
of the elements of the landscape have been brought
together: the wild flora of moss and small spring
flowers; cultivated nature, represented by the
potted blooms; and the fauna suggested by the
nest with eggs.
Created by nineteenth-century painter
Oliver Clare – the son of prominent still-life artist
George Clare – this work is the only historical piece
in The Dorchester’s collection. Placed alongside
more contemporary works, it can be seen as both
modern and timeless.
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THE PROMENADE
PHOTOGRAPH
Helen Sear
Photographer Helen Sear – voted one of the key 100
women photographers in the world by The Royal
Photographic Society – explores the themes of multilayered
memories and the everyday technologies that
increasingly allow entanglement into multiple spaces.
The image shows a single figure immersed in three
different, overlapping landscapes (Regent’s Park,
Iping Common and Sant Elm). Sear layers multiple
images to create an evocative, dream-like piece,
deliberately combining photographs taken at different
times and different locations.
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THE PROMENADE
PLASTER AND WATERCOLOUR
Rachel Dein
Artist Rachel Dein brings the English garden
indoors with this commissioned plaster work.
Exactly replicating British botanicals through a
meticulous casting process that uses real flowers,
she preserves the textures, patterns and delicacies
of each plant in exquisite detail.
The fleeting moment of growth – tight buds,
delicate petals, slim tendrils reaching upwards –
is granted a new life in perpetuity, the transience
of nature carefully preserved and transformed
into art.
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THE PROMENADE
TEXTILE COLLAGE
Amanda Richardson
The uneven edges of this close-up garden scene
mimic the organic forms of leaves and petals, breaking
the traditional bounds of painting. And, in fact, the
Ghislaine de Feligonde roses and honeysuckle depicted
here are not painted but rather created with a collage
of textiles. The sense of depth to the artwork, like
layered leaves, is achieved through the nuance of
varied fabric textures.
Amanda Richardson hand-dyes her materials, which
she then combines in richly-coloured scenes of silks,
satins, and velvets. The fabric collage is a play on
England’s strong textile traditions, championed most
famously by William Morris, that captured natural
elements for decorative ends.
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THE PROMENADE
WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER
Rosie Sanders
Artist Rosie Sanders focuses on a single yellow
rose to create this striking work.
Botanical paintings and drawings have a long
tradition among professionals and amateurs alike.
They are a way of capturing the transience of
nature, understanding otherwise overlooked
intricacies, and cataloguing our knowledge of the
world. Sanders’ work challenges the boundaries
and perceptions of contemporary botanical art:
the monumental scale of this otherwise small
flower gives it an elevated intensity.
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THE PROMENADE
OIL ON LINEN
Eleanor Watson
In this large contemporary painting by artist Eleanor
Watson, winner of the prestigious Jonathan Vickers
Fine Art Award, we are situated in the middle of the
landscape, partaking in the scene rather than viewing
it from afar. The view into the space beyond is
largely obscured by the architectural hedges, creating
a gateway that invites us into the distant grounds.
As though bathed in the intense light of a summer
noonday, we sense more than see our surroundings.
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THE PROMENADE
WOVEN METAL
Michelle McKinney
The oval floral sculpture features flowers –
anemone, aquilegia, hellebore, magnolia, sweet pea
and hydrangea – from our neighbouring Hyde Park.
The unusual translucency of its materials lends
an ethereal quality to the work.
Michelle McKinney works with exceptionally fine
woven metals, including stainless steel and brass.
The fragility and ephemerality of nature is
captured in the strength and permanence of these
industrial, manmade materials. Each tiny piece of
metal is hand cut and manipulated, layer by layer,
to create a unique, multidimensional piece that’s
a modern-day revival of the Victorian art and
industry of flower-making once so vital to London
interior design and fashion.
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Artists'
Bar
The artwork collection in Artists’ Bar focuses closely
on the London landscape’s connection to The Dorchester.
Complementing the bespoke Lalique bar and mirrored
interiors, each work speaks directly to the hotel and its
prominent place in the city’s heart and history.
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ARTISTS' BAR
MOTHER-OF-PEARL BUTTONS
ON CANVAS
Ann Carrington
The gleam of mother-of-pearl shines from this
artwork’s surface, its opalescent surface creating
muted reflections. Ann Carrington works with
amassed found objects to turn classical portrait
painting on its head. Here, she’s used over 1,000
mother-of-pearl buttons to create a portrait of
HM Queen Elizabeth II, who visited The Dorchester
a number of times throughout her life.
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ARTISTS' BAR
OIL ON CANVAS
Amy Judd
The long hair of a woman extends beyond the
frame from behind an exaggerated bouquet of
flowers. Her simple T-shirt contrasts with the
delicate elegance of the petals. As in many of artist
Amy Judd’s works, the portrait is occluded by an
exuberant burst of petals, a whimsical melding
of traditional floral still life and portrait genres.
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ARTISTS' BAR
GOLD LEAF ON PAPER
Ewan Eason
Artist Ewan Eason draws inspiration from the
patterns of cartography to create abstract works.
This piece is a map of the city’s Hyde Park area
with The Dorchester standing proudly at its centre,
designed to reflect the tightly interwoven histories
of London and the hotel.
Rendered entirely in gold leaf, it casts a shimmering
glow over the dazzling interiors of Artists’ Bar.
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ARTISTS' BAR
ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Melanie Goemans
The lines of the tree hover between tentative sketch
and authoritative stroke, underscoring the memorylike
quality of what we see around us. The sense
of a past remembered is accentuated by the contrast
between the precise foreground and the painterly,
two-dimensional background. Like Melanie Goemans’
other works, this piece was painted from a photograph
taken during her daily walk.
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ARTISTS' BAR
COLLAGE AND
GOLD LEAF ON PAPER
Maria Rivans
Created by artist Maria Rivans, this exuberant collage
is a playful pop-culture homage to The Dorchester
and its fascinating history. Elizabeth Taylor, who
found a second home at the hotel in the 1960s,
is adorned by myriad elements each with a special
connection to The Dorchester itself.
The intricate composition includes tea cups, in a
reference to the hotel’s cherished high teas; golden
decorative features, such as pineapples from the
hotel’s interiors; the hotel’s famous white Phantom
Rolls Royce; the plane tree, named one of the great
trees of London; and Dorchester House, the hotel’s
namesake. Gold leaf and true diamond dust augment
the work as another ode to the hotel’s luxury.
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ARTISTS' BAR
ACRYLIC AND GOLD LEAF
ON CANVAS
Sue Arrowsmith
The foliage depicted in this piece has been
meticulously recorded from life and traced from
photography. However, by flattening the background
to a gold-leaf plane, it takes on abstract forms.
This minimalist approach bridges traditional
landscape painting with the decorative arts.
Artist Sue Arrowsmith deploys her background in
textile design to nod to historical luxury interiors
of old, as the gold leaf radiates like finest silk.
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ARTISTS' BAR
ACRYLIC AND GOLD LEAF
ON CANVAS
Jake Frame
This striking depiction of a solitary tree on a solid
gold-leaf backdrop captures our attention with its
stark contrast between foreground and background.
The cherry blossoms are a traditional sign of spring
and rejuvenation.
Jake Frame’s paintings are rooted firmly in the
landscape tradition, and his use of mixed materials
offsets an element of the world in a vivid and
dramatic way. As in other works on view in Artists’
Bar, Frame isolates a single piece of the landscape
for closer appreciation.
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The Dorchester
Park Lane, London W1K 1QA
+44 (0)20 7629 8888
dorchestercollection.com
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