Quick Facts
Biography
Dorothy Josephine Coke (1897-1979) was an English artist notable for her work as a war artist on the British home front during the Second World War. Coke was also an art teacher and as an artist was known for her watercolours, which have a very free, open-air quality to them.
Life and work
Coke was born in Southend-on-Sea in Essex in 1897 and when she was seventeen entered the Slade School of Art, where she continued to study throughout the First World War. In the summer of 1918 Coke submitted some sketches to the British War Memorials Committee for a possible commission. That proposal was rejected but shortly afterwards Muirhead Bone bought two of her watercolours for the Imperial War Museum collection. In 1920 she was elected a member of the New English Art Club.
By the start of World War Two Coke was a popular and well known artist. During the War she received a short-term commission from the War Artists Advisory Committee to depict the work being performed by women in various services. To this end she spent time with the Women's Voluntary Service, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and also with the Red Cross. One of her paintings was included in the Britain at War exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York which opened in May 1941. By the end of the War, WAAC had acquired eight paintings from Coke. During the War she was also elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society.
After the War, Coke taught art at Brighton College of Art until her retirement in 1967.