Lois Dodd: Celebrating authentic moments of daily life

Who: Lois Dodd is an American painter whose observational, understated renderings of landscapes, nudes, and still lives celebrate the quiet but unabashedly authentic moments of daily life. 

About the Artist: Lois Dodd was born 1927 in Montclair, New Jersey, and attended The Cooper Union from 1945-1948. In 1952 she was one of five artists (and only woman founder) to establish the Tanager Gallery in New York City, which was integral to the avant-garde scene of the ’50s. From 1971 to 1992, Dodd taught at Brooklyn College, and she is elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and National Academy of Design. 

What she is known for: Lois Dodd’s no-frills observational paintings can be seen as reactions to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, as well as celebrations of the deeply honest and authentic condition of life she experienced every day. She developed her own technique of recording her observations in one sitting, en plein air, on Masonite panels.

“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,” she explained. “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.” 

What’s being said about her:  In 2017 Lund Humphries published a stand alone monograph of her work as part of their new Contemporary Artist series. Lund Humphries writes, “Through extensive studio visits and interviews, Faye Hirsch considers the processes, places and impulses behind Dodd’s paintings and reveals her outwardly peaceful, reflective canvases to be the product of an alert and forceful eye and a powerfully efficient execution.”

The Weingarten Art Group has acquired several Lois Dodd works for select clients, which have become cornerstone pieces for clients with a classical sensibility and love of meditative painting.