Opening reception Sunday, July 5 from 4-6 p.m.

Wed, 07/01/2015 - 11:24

Robert L. Stahl, Monhegan Museum of Art & History

This Lamar Dodd painting entitled “Walter and Frank” is included in the exhibition of Dodd’s Monhegan works at the Monhegan Museum of Art & History on Monhegan Island. This exhibition runs through Sept. 30. Courtesy of Robert L. Stahl

“Sea Forces,” by Lamar Dodd.

Lamar Dodd’s Monhegan work will be the focus of the Monhegan Museum’s 2015 art exhibition. The show, “Half a Century of Monhegan Summers,” will be on view at the Monhegan Museum of Art and History through September 30.

Drawing from two large collections, the collection of the Lamar Dodd Art Center at LaGrange College, GA and the C.L. Morehead Collection from Athens, GA, along with other private collections, this exhibit spans work from his first to his last Monhegan visit in 1992, and will be the first solo retrospective of the artist’s Monhegan work to be shown in New England.

Dodd (1909-1996) first traveled to the island in 1947 under a Carnegie Foundation Grant and was quickly drawn to the challenges its natural beauty posed, returning each summer to seek out its subject matter. A gifted teacher, Dodd served as the Chairman of the art department at the University of Georgia (now The Lamar Dodd School of Art) from 1939 until his retirement in 1972. Dodd was President of the College Art Association of America from 1954 to 1956, and in 1962 was named director of the National Council of Arts in Education.

Dodd’s work is part of many permanent collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the High Museum, among others.

Robert L. Stahl, Associate Director of the Monhegan Museum and curator of the exhibition, notes that following Dodd’s studies at the Art Student League, where he was influenced by masters of the Ashcan School as well as leaders of the American Scene movement, his painting style evolved over the years.

Always basing his work upon a representational concept, Dodd nevertheless expressed in his later years a desire to reorganize its natural forms. An artist who explored and expanded with gusto his creative process in a multitude of subjects, mediums and styles, this exhibition includes works in watercolor, oil, encaustic, and ink. A catalogue of the exhibition is available online and at the museum for $18.

The Museum, located on Light House Hill Road on Monhegan Island. Hours in July and August are 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily and in September, daily from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Admission is $5.

For more information, call 207-596-7003 or visit www.monheganmuseum.org.