University of Georgia (Lamar Dodd School of Art)

The Lamar Dodd School of Art is one of the largest university art programs in the nation. With over 1000 art majors, the faculty and staff are dedicated to providing the highest level of instruction in studio art, design, art education, and art history. The School attracts highly qualified and talented students who are seeking to study art at a major comprehensive university. The faculty is made up of nationally recognized artists and scholars who promote a rigorous and lively creative atmosphere conducive to experimentation, innovation, scholarship and creative inquiry. In addition to its on-campus facilities, the School also has a year-round Studies Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy, that has served over 4,000 students from 400 American institutions since its inception in 1969. More recently the School has expanded the international opportunities for study in art to include programs in Japan, Cuba and Ghana.




Facilities

Visual Arts Building
The two-story Visual Arts Building was completed in 1961 under the watchful supervision of namesake School of Art director Lamar Dodd. The modern concrete facade is a radical departure from traditional University of Georgia brick architecture, making the School of Arts Jackson Street headquarters easily stand out on campus. Built to house and showcase the various disciplines embraced by the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Visual Arts Building contains large studios with natural lighting, multiple photographic darkrooms, technologically enhanced lecture halls, a vaulted main gallery hall, and everything in between. A majority of the undergraduate art classes, including Art Appreciation, Art Education, Art History, Ceramics, Drawing and Painting, Digital Media, Foundations, Photography, and Printmaking, are still held in the building. Students work is often displayed on the walls of the building in the Foyer and Courtyard Galleries. Despite the growth of the School of Art over the four decades since its construction, the Visual Arts Building remains the centerpiece of the School of Art and its presence on the campus of the University of Georgia.




Directions to Visual Arts Building
From Atlanta take either US 85N or US 78E to GA 316E. After entering Oconee County, there are several exits indicating the way to Athens or the University; ignore these exits and follow 316. Soon after passing a Home Depot (on the right) and a Super Wal-Mart (on the left), 316 will bear right and join Atlanta Highway (Business 78E), which will turn into Broad Street, the main thoroughfare through downtown Athens. Pass the Holiday Inn (not Holiday Inn Express) on the right and continue through 2 lights. The 3rd light will be Jackson Street. Turn right (south) onto Jackson Street and drive past 2 roads on the left. The Visual Arts Building, University Building Number 0040, is a white, modern building on the left side of the road, just south of a large parking deck.

From Augusta take US 20W to US 78W. US 78 will become Lexington Road as it approaches Athens. Approximately 1 mile past the intersection with GA 10, Lexington Road will become Broad Street, the main thoroughfare through downtown Athens. The second traffic intersection in Athens is Jackson Street. Turn left (south) onto Jackson Street and drive past 2 roads on the left. The Visual Arts Building, University Building Number 0040, is a white 1960s-style building on the left side of the road, just south of a large parking deck.




History

The School of Art originated from the combination of art departments in the Georgia State College of Agriculture and the former Georgia State Teachers College which had been merged into UGA in 1933. Known as applied art in the College of Agriculture, it was a part of the department of Home Economics.

In 1937, the University hired Lamar Dodd to the position of resident artist with a title of associate professor. The next year he was made the department head, and he earned a full professorship in 1939. With an enrollment of fifty art majors in 1937, Dodd had grown that number to 225 by 1948.

Dodd brought in John Held, Jr. for the 1940-1941 school year and Jean Charlot for the 1941-1942 school year as artists in residence. Charlot adorned the Fine Arts Building with a fresco depicting music, drama and the visual arts.

Dodd also began an annual art auction in 1940 of the works of student and outside artists to raise money to promote the arts. He built the permanent collection of the Art Museum and created an annual Georgia Student Art Exhibition to display the works of local high school and college students. The scope of the art department grew from public school and commercial art to all facets of artwork.

The year 1940 also marked the opening of the Fine Arts building with the entire left wing being occupied by the Art Department. The central portion of the building contained a 2000 seat auditorium, and the music department occupied the right wing.

In 1948, Alfred Heber Holbrook, a prominent lawyer in Manhattan for several decades, donated the Eva Underhill Holbrook Memorial Collection of American Art initially totaling 100 paintings (valued in the range of $145,000-$175,000 in 1945) from his personal collection to the School of Art in memory of his deceased wife Eva. Holbrook served as the initial curator of the collection and continued to donate artwork to the collection. The collection included Winslow Homer's Sunflower Pickaninny, John Singer Sargent's portrait of Joseph Jefferson as Rip van Winkle, James McNeill Whistler's Red Rosalie of Lyme Regis, George Luks's Plaza Cabbie, George Bellows' Sea Spume and canvases by John Sloane, Marsden Hartley and John Marin.

Dodd headed the art school until he retired in 1972, and the school was named in his honor in 1996.

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Lamar Dodd School of Art Art School Location

Other art schools in Athens

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