Francis Edgar Dodd (29 November 1874 – 7 March 1949) was a British portrait painter, landscape artist and printmaker.

Biography

Dodd was born in

Holyhead Holyhead (,; cy, Caergybi , "Cybi's fort") is the largest town and a community in the county of Isle of Anglesey, Wales, with a population of 13,659 at the 2011 census. Holyhead is on Holy Island, bounded by the Irish Sea to the north, and i ...

Anglesey Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strait and some islets and skerries. Anglesey island ...

, Wales, the son of a Wesleyan minister. He trained at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

alongside Muirhead Bone, who married Dodd's sister, Gertrude. At Glasgow, Dodd won the Haldane Scholarship in 1893 and then travelled around France, Italy and later Spain. Dodd returned to England in 1895 and settled in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

, becoming friends with

Charles Holden Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

, before moving to Blackheath in London in 1904. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, in 1916, he was appointed an official war artist by Charles Masterman, the head of the

War Propaganda Bureau Wellington House is the more common name for Britain's War Propaganda Bureau, which operated during the First World War from Wellington House, a building on Buckingham Gate, London, which was the headquarters of the National Insurance Commission b ...

, WPB. Serving on the

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers * Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...

, he produced more than 30 portraits of senior military figures. However, he also earned a considerable peacetime reputation for the quality of his watercolours and portrait commissions. He was appointed a trustee of the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in 1929, a position he held for six years, and was elected as an Associate of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1927 and a full Member in 1935. From 1911 Dodd lived at Arundel House (51 Blackheath Park) in

Blackheath, London Blackheath is an area in Southeast London, straddling the border of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Lewisham. It is located northeast of Lewisham, south of Greenwich and southeast of Charing Cross, the traditional ...

SE3, until he took his own life in 1949.

References

External links

*
Works by Francis Dodd in the collections of the Imperial War MuseumPortrait of Francis Dodd by Stephen Bone on the ArtUK website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dodd, Francis 1874 births 1949 suicides 19th-century Welsh painters 19th-century Welsh male artists 20th-century British printmakers 20th-century Welsh painters 20th-century Welsh male artists Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art Artists who committed suicide British Army personnel of World War I British war artists People from Holyhead Royal Academicians Suicides by gas Suicides in London Welsh male painters Welsh portrait painters World War I artists