South London Women Artists April 2014 | Page 24

invited by Edori Fertig Dorothy Bohm I first met Dorothy through her daughter, Monica, the art historian and curator. I then became familiar with Dorothy’s work as a portrait and street photographer of substantial importance. Her displaced childhood as a Jewish refugee from Lithuania before World War Two made her deeply aware of the vulnerability of human existence and empowered her with the gift of being able to capture the fleeting moment with a poetic urgency. She photographs her subjects with an intimacy, possibly due to her gentle and warm presence. Her subjects and their relationship to the paraphernalia of the street coincide with joy, humour, beauty and humanity. South London Women Artists I’m Inside, Ring The Bell 25