Louis Dodd

In the art world, there are many good contemporary painters, but few great ones. Englishman Louis Dodd was one of those few. 

Connoisseur Magazine stated, "Dodd is a painter of 17th and 18th century marine art, both ship portraiture and port cities. His ability is unsurpassed. This is coupled with an intimate knowledge of ports and famous structures. He is possibly the most historically gifted artist to come into the marine field in the last 100 years."

Born in 1943, in Hastings, England, Louis Dodd attended the Hastings School of Art and the Goldsmith School of Art, majoring in illustration. His ability in draftsmanship and line work earned him a National Diploma in Design. After college, he spent several years in typographic and graphic design work, but he was determined to become a full-time fine artist.

Dodd began each work with a fine line drawing of the subject ship along with a rough outline of secondary nautical craft. These were incorporated then, into the structural landmarks of the harbor or port scene in question. The end result was reminiscent of the great masters of marine art.

Dodd painted mainly on mahogany panels or on fine laminated hardwood panels with one side finished in mahogany, a traditional support for paintings for many centuries. He first applied a chalk ground, which was left to dry and harden, then scraped down and smoothed. He used a white lead base to fill in any blemishes, since a scratch could appear as rigging if left untreated.

The wide background areas are where he began his paintings, and then the more detailed work until all the main elements had been added. He then applied glaze using transparent colors sympathetic to the base painting. The fine detail work such as the ships' rigging came next, and the painting was completed with varnish.

The paintings of Louis Dodd are exhibited in some of the world's finest collections of marine art and in a select group of galleries across North America. He has the distinction of winning the Schaefer Award, the highest given in the field of marine art, three times.