Lamar Dodd

Lamar Dodd (1909-1996) was a U.S. painter whose work reflected a love of the American South.

Born in Fairburn, Georgia and reared in LaGrange, Georgia, Dodd trained in the South, including a short stay at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. He taught art in Alabama before traveling to New York City to study under advocates of the Ashcan School of painting as well as to gain a nativist perpective from the paintings of artists such as Thomas Hart Benton. He returned to Birmingham, Alabama determined to champion local art. Over a long and productive career his styles encompassed naturalism and expressionism and extended to abstract art.

Dodd was also a university teacher and administrator. Appointed to the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1937, he consolidated art instruction into a unified department and intitiated a master's degree program. The Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia is named in his memory.