Background
Lois Dodd was born on April 22, 1927, in Montclair, New Jersey, United States. She is a daughter of Lawrence Dodd and Margaret (Vanderhoff) Dodd.
30 Cooper Sq, New York, NY 10003, United States
During the period from 1945 till 1948, Lois studied at Cooper Union in New York City.
1083 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128, United States
In 1988, Lois became a member of the National Academy of Design.
633 West 155 Street, New York, NY 10032, United States
In 1998, Dodd was made a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Dodd in her Cushing studio, located in a barn next to her house.
Lois Dodd was born on April 22, 1927, in Montclair, New Jersey, United States. She is a daughter of Lawrence Dodd and Margaret (Vanderhoff) Dodd.
During the period from 1945 till 1948, Lois studied at Cooper Union in New York City. In 2004, she received an Honorary Degree from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts.
Just after the end of World War II, as part of the wave of New York modernists to explore the coast of Maine, Dodd helped to change the face of painting in the state. Being a member of a group of artists, including Fairfield Porter, Rackstraw Downes, Alex Katz, Charles DuBack and Neil Welliver, Lois spent her summers in the Mid-Coast region, surrounding Penobscot Bay. Working away from the city and its urbane art circles allowed the artists the freedom to explore new modes of painting, both landscapes and figures, that were a bane in the epoch of Abstract Expressionism.
In 1952, Lois, together with four other artists, founded the Tanager Gallery, where she exhibited her work from 1952 to 1962. Between 1962 and 1975, she worked as a member of the Artist’s Housing committee. In 1971, she began to teach at Brooklyn College and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where, in 1980, she also began serving on the Board of Governors. She remained in that teaching position at those two educational establishments until 1992. Beginning in the mid-1970's to the mid-1990's, Lois acted as a chair of the Art Department at Brooklyn College in New York City, where she also developed a graduate program in painting.
Between 1972 and 1975, Dodd served as a chairperson of the Cooper Square Community Development Committee. The same year, in 1972, she was made a board member of The Lower East Side Printshop in New York City. In 1977, Lois served on the Board of Advisors at the Artist’s Choice Museum. During the period from 1990 till 1993, Dodd was on Advisory Board of the Colby College Museum of Art.
In 2012, Dodd's work was the subject of a major retrospective, called "Catching the light", featuring over 50 works made over a 60 year period, and traveled from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City to the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.
During her career, Lois took part in many exhibitions, including those at Stable Gallery, New York City (1956), Colby College, Waterville (1977), Fischbach Gallery, New York City (1978, 1980, 1999 and 2000) and others.
Currently, Lois is a Governor Emerita at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She resides in New York and works in Maine.
Corner of Bakery and Tree
Allium
Queen Anne's lace
Queen Anne's lace closed
Back of Men's Hotel (From My Window)
Shed Window
Barn Window With White Square
Cone Flowers
Three Trunks And Dogwood
Water Gap, March
Foggy Day, February
7 to 8 AM, Spring
Pond
Apple Tree
Cow Parsnip in Bud
White Lily
Red Gladioli
Spider Web
Calla Lilies
Nude Seated on Grass with Yellow Hat
Purple Window + Moon
A painter of New England landscape, Lois is fascinated by shapes, and much of her work has geometric emphasis. Her subject matter includes windows, doorways, stairwells, barns, tree landscapes, rivers and woods, and it explores a world of both her psyche and physical surroundings. She excludes human figures, but the human presence is everywhere because of the included objects. Her work is a unique immersion in regionalism through modernist eyes.
In her oeuvre, Dodd refused the sources, that other artists of her generation took as a given: mass media, popular culture and the bright surfaces of a comfortable life. There is nothing glitzy about her work, neither in its subject matter nor in her use of materials. She does not celebrate excess, ownership or leisure, nor does she condemn it.
Quotations: "I’m always aware that I’m trying to get the outline of any shadows or anything like that right away before it shifts because I was attracted to the way it looked at the moment I arrived. Not the way it will look by the time I leave. If things are moving too much, and shadows are shifting, I have to outline all that quickly in order to maintain the way it looked to me when I was first attracted to it."
Quotes from others about the person
"Lois is one serious painter." - Alex Katz, a painter and sculptor
In her early years, Lois was married to William King, an artist and sculptor. Their marriage produced one child - Eli Benjamin. Later, the couple divorced. William died in 2015.