Details

Name

Phyllis Dodd

Brief Biography

1899-1995, English

Occupation

Artist

Description

Phyllis Dodd was an interesting and prolific artist who specialised in figural studies and portraiture. Born in Chester to a shopkeeping family, she studied at the Liverpool School of Art (1917-21), her mother taking in paying guests to pay for the tuition, and, after winning a Royal Exhibitions scholarship, went on to study painting at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London (1921-25). Having already studied painting for two years at Liverpool she was admitted to the third year life painting class with the men, a break with convention as the sexes were normally kept separate for life study. She achieved her painting diploma in two years rather than three, producing a decorative painting for the prescribed subject, ‘a Nurse’s Dining-room’. She then took an etching diploma under Sir Frank Short, and was awarded a continuation scholarship for her final year. In July 1925 she was jointly awarded the final year Drawing Prize from the School of Painting, along with Gerald Cooper (later Principal of Wimbledon School of Art).

Dodd was a life-long friend of Henry Moore, with whom she studied at the RCA (he also received a Royal Exhibitions scholarship), alongside further close friends Raymond Coxon, Kathleen Bridle and Robert Lyon; as northerners they stuck together. She taught part-time at Walthamstow Technical College (September 1925 – July 1930), where she received portrait commissions through recommendations from the Principal, William Rothenstein. She married Scottish artist Douglas Percy Bliss during this time in 1928. They had two daughters, Rosalind and Prudence, the former who also became a well known artist. They moved to Derbyshire during the war in 1940-42, when Dodd was consumed by domestic duties. Her mother had made Bliss promise to let Dodd continue to paint after their marriage, but the reality was that she was overcome with household demands. In 1945 Dodd and Bliss moved to Glasgow when Bliss was appointed Director of the Glasgow School of Art, and they shared a Victorian house with Bliss’ mother. Dodd exhibited in Glasgow at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (24 paintings, 1946-63), as well as at the Royal Scottish Academy (7 paintings, 1948-55). She also exhibited at the Royal Academy and New English Art Club in London. She had a joint exhibition with her husband at Derby Art Gallery in 1947, there was a major retrospective of her work at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University in November 1989 (A Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Phyllis Dodd in Celebration of the Artist's Nintieth Birthday), and in 1995, the year of her death, there was a retrospective exhibition of her work at Newport Art Gallery.