Dorothy Kay

Dorothy Moss Kay (1886–1964, née Elvery) was an Irish-born South African artist.

Early life, family and education Dorothy Elvery was born in 1886 in Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland. Her father was William Elvery, whose family owned Elverys Sports store in Dublin. Her sister Beatrice Elvery (1883-1970, also known as Beatrice, Lady Glenavy), was a painter, stained-glass artist and sculptor. Elvery trained at Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1900 and at the Royal Hibernian Academy school, but "promoted the notion that she was 'self-taught'".

Her largest painting was the 1937 work Surgery, showing a patient undergoing abdominal surgery (a cholecystectomy). Kay portrayed herself as the scrub nurse and her husband Hobart as the surgeon. In preparation for this painting she visited three hospitals and observed at least two operations, making 27 pages of preliminary sketches of people and equipment used in surgery. During World War II she painted further medical paintings: Operation in a Base Hospital and Blood to Save Lives.

She held one-woman exhibitions from 1922 to 1955, and retrospective exhibitions of her work were held at the South African National Gallery in 1965 and 1982.