Dora Gordine was an Estonian Jewish Modernist figurative and portraitist sculptor. Her early career was influenced by the Noor Eesti group of artists who favoured Art Nouveau. She moved to Paris and on her third marriage, to Hon. Richard Hare (1907–66), her career expanded to the extent that some critics regarded her as amongst the finest sculptors of her generation. She specialized in portrait sculptures attracting international admirers from the political, social, artistic, literary and theatrical worlds. Her legacy also includes a number of public space pieces. Her latter career was not as prolific or as fêted and Gordine was relatively unknown at the time of her death. Major exhibitions in London in 2006 and 2009 have revived her standing and her former home is now a museum.

Kingston Vale with Kingston Hill is a district in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in south-west London. It is a residential area between Richmond Park, the much smaller Putney Vale, Wimbledon Common, Coombe/Coombe Hill and the Norbiton part of the very old borough. The main road is the A308 which is a through route for traffic passing to and from Kingston Hill to the A3 trunk road. Many of the branch roads are cul-de-sacs. It includes, toward the east and in the Vale, the only part of Kingston which drains eastward, that is, into Beverley Brook. The hill expanse, shared with Coombe and a golf course, has a hotel, some tall blocks overlooking Kingston, the edge of Kingston Hospital, the main campus of Kingston University London and faint remnants of dense woodland.