In November 2013 Waterhouse & Dodd mounted the commercially and critically well received exhibition of works by David Bomberg. That exhibition included works by his students at the Borough Polytechnic - a group of artist's who went on to form the Borough Group. One of the founder members, alongside Dennis Creffield, Miles Richmond and Cliff Holden, was Dorothy Mead.

Mead was a prodigious talent. She was tutored from a young age by Bomberg, and despite once filing a formal complaint against his teaching methods (while still a teenager) she followed him to the Borough Polytechnic and became one of his most vocal supporters. Despite the close links, she maintained a style that was her own; always experimental, always challenging and always evolving. Her defiance was once again demonstrated when she refused to sit an exam on perspective at the Slade School of Art declaring in a letter to William Coldsteam that "perspective is completely alien to me in my work as a painter." Needless to say, she failed to gain her diploma from the school.

Despite such bold career moves, she was widely respected by her peers and critics at the time. Her work was collected by the Arts Council who included her in an exhibition of '6 Young Painters' in 1964. Alongside Mead were figures such as Bridget Riley and David Hockney. Mead also became the first female president of the London Group, and was well respected as a teacher at colleges such as Goldsmith's in London. By the early 1970s her work was in the Tate collection. Her life was cut tragically short in 1975, she was just 46 years old.

Our exhibition is a retrospective of works from the artists estate. We begin with her visceral and vibrant early landscapes which show an early debt to Bomberg. We include her self-portraits and early figure paintings that bear comparison to Kossoff and Auerbach - fellow alumni of Bomberg's classes (if not actual members of the Borough Group). By the 1960s we see an artist moving towards a softer style and working on more complex multi-figure works that seem both steeped in art history but also uniquely hers. Finally, there are hints at what turns she might have taken had she lived longer, including a mysterious and beautiful small abstract.

Jamie Anderson of Waterhouse & Dodd notes; "Interest in the Borough Group is growing rapidly as Modern British collectors look for new discoveries. There is a growing desire to know and understand artists whose reputations have lain dormant for some time. In Mead's work we see a direct lineage through Bomberg to Sickert and beyond. Her uncompromising yet elegant work is an antidote to the more decorative elements of post-war British art."

Mead's work has recently been the subject of a retrospective at the Borough Road Gallery (2012) and featured in the Ben Uri exhibition 'Uproar' which charted the first 50 years of the London Group (a show which included the afore mentioned Sickert, Coldstream, Bomberg and Kossoff). Rachel Flemming-Mulford (curator of the Borough Road Gallery) notes in her essay for the 'Uproar' catalogue; "Mead (had) struggled to gain the proper recognition that is now coming with her rediscovery."

A small selection of work from the exhibition was previewed at the 20/21 British Art Fair in September 2014.