DODD, Alan

1942 - ?

Alan Dodd was born at Kennington near Ashford, Kent on 23 November 1942, son of Alfred Charles Dodd (31 July 1915-27 March 2002) and his wife Mary L. née Smith, who married at Ashford in 1941. Alan was educated at Ashford Grammar School and studied at Maidstone College of Art, where his teachers included brothers Christopher (1913-1992) and Robin Ironside (1912-1965), Gerard de Rose (1918-1997) and David Hockney (born 1937). Later studying at the Royal Academy Schools, tutored by Charles Mahoney (1903-1968), Peter Greenham (1909-1992), Edward Bawden, Richard Eurich (1903-1992), Anthony Eyton (born 1923) and Fred Dubery. A designer and mural painter, in historic and sensitive architectural settings, but also doing new work 'in keeping' and has exhibited at the Royal Academy Bicentenary Exhibition 1967-1968 and has shown at many Royal Academy summer exhibitions 1968-1983. Following three successful exhibitions of his surrealist paintings at the New Grafton Gallery 1969-1972, he began to paint murals with particular emphasis on historic styles and their relation to architecture and at the same time, lecturing on the history of furniture. His mural works have included the five large architectural capricci for the Painted Room at the Victoria & Albert Museum, commissioned by Sir Roy Strong in 1986; architectural panels after Piranesi, for decorations at Alexandra Palace in 1987; re-creation of the trompe l’oeil decoration on the Vardy staircase at Spencer House, 1990; and the Pompeiian ceiling decoration in the New Picture Room at Sir John Soane’s Museum in 1992, based upon designs approved by Lord Leighton one hundred years earlier. In 1998, working from the Adam drawings for the house, he re-created the three large wall paintings of ruins with figure subjects from Virgil after the lost canvasses by Antonio Zucchi (1726-1795), for the Eating Room at Home House, 20 Portman Square and designed the Millennium Cross, a memorial to Cardinal Hume, set up outside Westminster Cathedral in October 2001. An architectural painter and muralist living at High Hall, London Road, Weston, Beccles, Suffolk.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 295 Caledonian Road, North London
1968 395 Coincidence - watercolour
1969 1002 Incident in London E4
         1039 Picture and Chair
from c/o New Grafton Gallery, 1a Grafton Street, West London
1970 188 Adam Fireplace
         199 Censored View
1972 405 Water Lilies
         408 Before and After
from 295 Caledonian Road, North London
1974 310 Quandary
         820 Harbinger
1978 157 Portrait of Sam Chesterton
         1169 Sample - watercolour
1980 578 Optimist
1981 1086 Conservation Area
1982 628 Souvenir
1983 449 Evening Light

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Works by This Artist