Lois Dodd: Natural Order at The Bruce Museum

A photo (below) of 95-year-old artist, Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927) popped up in my inbox one morning and held me intrigued. I could visit the show, “Lois Dodd: Natural Order” — her first museum survey ever in the New York metropolitan area, at The Bruce Museum, in Greenwich, CT (now in its closing days through May 28). She is 95-years-strong and shamefully, I had never heard of her. I have a thing (as someone who has studied interior design) for experiencing people in their living environments. There is a gift of witnessing little clues in the objects people surround themselves with that share more about a person than the words people make alone. In this photo, it was the whimsical collection of a few stems of fresh flowers, floral curtains and a vibrant painting on a brick wall that harmonized with the radiant being whose eyes and smile seemed to beckon to something deeper within me (I want to be that woman having a show at 95!).

I made it up to The Bruce Museum and delighted in the nearly eighty works, the largest survey of Dodd’s career to date. The relationship to her living environment was on full display. The colors and shapes of the world natural and manmade felt resonant and divine. The painterly brushstrokes and gestures were a welcome marriage of realism and abstraction. And the seventy-some decades that reflect a life of ever-present seeing culminated in my artist self feeling a deep awakening. “Painters are lucky that they see things—not everyone has this ability,” Dodd has said. “I can see things, and that’s where it starts.” Where are my brushes?!

Lois Dodd in her East Village apartment with her painting “Eli In Apple Tree” (1965) above the table. Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Apple Tree, 1965

Oil on canvas

Courtesy Private Collection, Guilford, CT

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Black Iris in June, 2008

Oil on masonite

Courtesy Private Collection, New York

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Spider Web with Clover and Grass, 2004

Oil on linen

Courtesy Private Collection, New York

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Brook, Snow, Shadows, 1994

Oil on masonite

Courtesy Hall Collection

© Lois Dodd, image courtesy of Hall Art Foundation

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Moon Ring, 1982

Oil on linen

Courtesy Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, Gift of the American Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters, N.Y.; Hassam, Speicher, Betts & Symons Funds, 1992.003

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Winter Sunset, Blair Pond, 2008

Oil on linen, 48 x 52 in.

Courtesy Private Collection, Holyoke, Massachusetts

© Lois Dodd, image courtesy of Alexandre Gallery, New York

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Riverbank, Vermont, 2005

Oil on linen

Hall Collection. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Ice Pileup in the Water Gap, 1978

Oil on masonite

Hall Collection. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

View of Barn at Night, 1976

Oil on masonite

Hall Collection. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Night Window with Shade, 1973

Oil on linen

JPMorgan Chase Art Collection

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Springtime Studio Interior, 1973

Oil on canvas

Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME, A Gift from Violet and Shim Ben-Lev, 1998.6

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Window, Cityscape, Oval Mirror, 1973

Oil on linen

Cordelia Nicholas LLC, courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

View Through Elliot’s Shack Looking North, 1971

Oil on linen

Cordelia Nicholas LLC, courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Sun in Hallway, 1978

Oil on linen

Courtesy of the artist and Alexandre Gallery, New York

© Lois Dodd, image courtesy of Alexandre Gallery, New York

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Attic Staircase and Sunlight, 1987-88

Oil on linen

Courtesy of the artist and Alexandre Gallery, New York

© Lois Dodd, image courtesy of Alexandre Gallery, New York

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Self-Portrait in Green House Window, 1971

Oil on linen

Portland Museum of Art, Maine. Museum purchase with support from the Contemporary Art Fund, in memory of Bernice McIlhenny Wintersteen, 2000.1

© Lois Dodd

Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927)

Chickens, 1957-58

Oil on linen

Courtesy of the artist and Alexandre Gallery, New York

© Lois Dodd, image courtesy of Alexandre Gallery, New York

iPhone snaps Beth Horta for Sweet Sabelle.