The lobby of the Stark Museum of Art and Hallway 1 feature Dorothy Doughty’s porcelain American Birds and nature.

Dorothy Doughty (1892-1962) was born in San Remo, Italy, in 1892. She was the daughter of a distinguished writer and a watercolorist. She studied at the Eastbourne School of Art and elsewhere. In the 1930’s the Royal Worcester company wanted to produce a series of American birds in porcelain. Dorothy’s sister Freda modeled figures for Worcester and she suggested Dorothy for the birds.

Although she had some guidance from her sister Freda, Dorothy Doughty had not been trained as a porcelain modeler. She learned how to model the birds in plasticine.  Dorothy Doughty’s first models were somewhat stiff. The birds of American Redstarts and Hemlock, her first model, produced in 1935, are firmly supported by both wings on the sprays of hemlock.  The Baltimore Orioles and Tulip Tree and Chickadees and Larch, both issued in 1938, show that Doughty and Royal Worcester had conquered most of the initial problems in techniques.

During World War II, Doughty gave therapeutic training to injured soldiers, teaching them to model flower groups.