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Dora Carrington was an English painter who studied at the Slade School of Art at the University College in London in 1910; she received a scholarship and several prizes for her work. While she may be best known for her complicated relationships and otherwise complex life, she was an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes who also worked in decorative arts. She was closely associated with the Bloomsbury Group. However, during her lifetime, she was not well known for her paintings and art endeavors and rarely exhibited work. She worked at the Omega Workshops and for Hogarth Press for a time designing woodcuts.
While at her time at Slade School of Art, she studied alongside Dorothy Brett, Paul Nash, Christopher R. W. Nevinson, and Mark Getler. She had several affairs, though, in 1916, she met Lytton Strachey, who she fell in love with but had a complicated relationship due to his homosexuality. They dwelled together in the same home and continued the relationship for the rest of his life. Both parties of the relationship held several affairs throughout their life together. In 1918, Carrington met Ralph Partridge and agreed to marry him but continued the ménage à trois. Strachey became terminally ill and eventually passed away in January of 1932. Carrington committed suicide in March of the same year.