Dorothy Leviny

Bertha "Dorothy" Leviny (1881– 9 April 1968) was an Australian artist.

Biography Leviny was born in 1881 in Castlemaine, Victoria to Ernest Leviny, a Hungarian silversmith and jeweller, and Bertha Leviny, (née Hudson) a homemaker. Her father arrived in Melbourne from London in 1853, intending to mine on the goldfields before discovering the machinery he had brought with him to be unsuitable. Instead of returning home he settled in Castlemaine, establishing a jewellery and watchmaking business in Market Square in 1854. then from 1901–1908 attended Bendigo School of Mines under Arthur T. Woodward, as did her sisters Mary and Gertrude before her, with Mary also attending painting classes in Melbourne under Jane Sutherland.

Dorothy and her younger sister Hilda both exhibited in the First Australian Exhibition of Women's Work 1907, with Dorothy entering a still life painting and wallpaper designs, and Hilda an embroidered screen and a tablecloth. She also created one of the few surviving posters for the event. Her wallpaper design won second prize in the Fine and Applied Arts and Photography section. They both later showed back in Castlemaine at an exhibition held by the Progress Association, with Hilda entering Irish crochet and Dorothy a cloth stencil design for a cushion, a local orchid stencil cloth, five designs for tiles, and one for wallpaper.

After spending time in Melbourne attending the Domestic Science College, she worked as a house mistress and a matron at schools before returning to Buda in 1923, the year her mother Bertha died.

All the sisters had an area of the garden that they tended, but Dorothy was the one responsible for it.

Leviny studied metal work and enameling under Stanley Ellis at the Castlemaine Technical School starting in 1925. This interest in metal work spanned many years, with her pursuing silversmithing and pewter work at RMIT (what was then the Workingmen's College) well into her sixties.

Legacy The craftiness and skill at art and design of all the Leviny sisters were effused into the Castlemaine home at Buda. When Ernest died in 1905, the redecoration of the house began, heavily influenced by the arts and crafts movement at the time. The house at Buda which still stands today is a testament to the hard work and creativity of the Leviny women. The furnishings and objects within the house remain as part of the Buda Historic Home & Garden, the property of which was deed-gifted to the Trustees of the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum by the last surviving sister, Hilda, in 1970. It was officially opened to the public as a museum in 1982.