Lois Dodd: Framing the Ephemeral

Lois Dodd

This fall, the Kunstmuseum Den Haag presents the first-ever European exhibition of the works of the painter Lois Dodd (born 1927), a pioneer in postwar American art who only gained international recognition later in life. Framing the Ephemeral brings together over a hundred paintings, focusing on works from the 1960s and 1970s—many never before seen in Europe. Dodd remains active after eight decades, a fact that immediately demonstrates the power of her working method: framing the world around her to capture the smallest changes over time. Her career is a celebration of painting as an act. She ventures out into nature, because painting is something to be done, again and again.

Dedication

Dodd's working method revolves around looking as a way to grasp the world: she frames reality, through windows, doorways, or with her hands, capturing fleeting moments in quick brushstrokes and thin layers of paint. She paints the everyday with a keen eye for light, atmosphere, and composition, from tranquil landscapes and night skies to interiors and urban scenes, often devoid of people, subtly registering changes in her surroundings in New York, Maine, and the Delaware Water Gap. While the art world in the second half of the twentieth century witnessed wave after wave of new movements—from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, from Minimalism to Conceptual Art—Dodd remained true to her own method: observing and painting what she saw. This makes her work a beacon of calm, dedication, and attention. Only later in life did she receive widespread recognition; her work is now included in prestigious collections such as the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.