Dorothy Wilding
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Dorothy Wilding (10 January 1893 - 9 February 1976) was a noted British society photographer from Gloucester. She wanted to become an actress or artist but this career was disallowed by her uncle, in whose family she lived, so she chose the art of photography which she started to learn from the age of sixteen.
By 1929 she had already moved studio a few times and in her Bond Street, London, studio she attracted theatrical stars and shot her first British Royal Family portrait of the 17-year-old Prince George (later Duke of Kent). This sitting was eventually followed by the famous Wilding portrait of the new Queen Elizabeth II that was used for a series of definitive postage stamps of Great Britain used between 1953 and 1967, and a series of Canadian stamps in use from 1954 to 1962. A previous portrait sitting of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon Queen Consort of King George VI had turned into a double portrait of the royal couple and was adapted for the 1937 Coronation issue stamp. That portrait led to her being the first woman awarded a Royal Warrant to be the official photographer to a King and Queen at their coronation. She opened a second photo studio in New York in 1937.[1]
An autobiography In Pursuit of Perfection was published in 1958.
[edit] Portraits
Besides members of the Royal family, Dorothy Wilding photographed many famous people like filmstars and celebrities amongst whom were: Sir Noel Coward, Jessie Matthews, Wallis Simpson, (Duchess of Windsor), Diana Wynyard, Claire Bloom, Harriet Cohen, Cecil Beaton, George Bernard Shaw, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Anna May Wong, Aldous Huxley, Dame Gladys Cooper, Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Wills Moody, Raymond Massey, Maurice Chevalier, Nancy Astor, Diana Wynyard, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Barbara Hutton, Fannie Hurst, Dame Barbara Cartland, Dame Daphne du Maurier, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Norman Hartnell, Harry Belafonte, Louis Jourdan, Yehudi Menuhin, William Somerset Maugham and Yul Brynner.
She is also known for her pictorial style nude photographs.
