Dora Dolz
(Barcelona 1941 – Rotterdam 2008)
Painter, sculptor, and ceramist. She arrived in the Netherlands in 1965, where she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam between 1967 and 1971 (now the Willem de Kooning Academy), graduating with a specialization in monumental art, an aspect that becomes evident when one becomes familiar with her work. She intensely explored still life from 1972 onward, employing highly personal motifs such as the fan, vase, bunch of grapes, mountain, wave, cloud, curtain, stairs, fruit bowl, seashell, butterfly, or the “chaise-longue.” These motifs, initially developed in painting, later manifested in her three-dimensional work. She commenced her ceramic work in 1978, with furniture as a prominent theme, drawing inspiration from vibrant glazed Catalan ceramics, which became a significant reference in her work. Dora Dolz’s creative universe plays with the contrast between Mediterranean colour and the greyish atmosphere of Holland, giving her work tremendous expressive strength. Dora Dolz was a highly accomplished artist, mastering painting, ceramics, and sculpture in a masterful manner. Her contribution to the international ceramic landscape is now widely recognized. Her glass works also deserve a special mention; under titles such as “Crowns” or “Mirrors” she shows a total mastery of the techniques and the plastic expression of the language of contemporary and current glass. Despite the great versatility and the spirit of experimentation evident in the materials and techniques she employed, Dora remained faithful to painting, considering it the source of her creativity. “I can’t breathe without painting.” “Painting is ordering: when I create a painting, I try to organize and give shape to emotions. That’s what life comes down to.” Between 1980 and 2000, she was a painting professor at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. She exhibited all over the Netherlands and received important prizes such as the Victorine Hefting in 1988, the Hague Salon Prize twice in 1981 and 1984, the Judith Leijster in 1993, and finally the Jeanne Oosting Prize in 2006. A retrospective exhibition was presented at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in 2008.
