FRANCIS FARRAND DODGE

Biography

(American, b. 1878 - d. 1969)

Born in Lansing, Michigan, she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hart A. Farrand. Graduating in 1898 from Central High School in Lansing, Michigan, where she had been the Art Editor for the Oracle, she went on to study at Michigan State University, Syracuse University, the Art Students League in New York, and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She received specialized training in watercolor in Chicago; in etching in New York from Joseph Pennell; and in portraiture and oil painting in Cincinnati where she was a student of Frank Duveneck. She married Arthur C. Dodge in 1907. They were together for 61 years.

Known for landscape and portrait paintings, etchings, and illustration, Dodge lived in a number of cities throughout the U.S., including Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Paul, and New York. Respected and admired by art critics for her strength of watercolor technique, her originality in the use of color and her competence in all media, she was superb in watercolor and she was listed in Who's Who in American Watercolorists.

Honored by numerous one-person shows throughout her life including those in Cincinnati, Pennsylvania and Chicago, Mrs. Dodge was featured at her last two in 1964; in March of that year at the Academy of Arts, Easton, Maryland, and in May, when her work was installed by the Association of Chicago Painters and Sculptors at the Chicago Galleries.

An Honorary Life Member of the Art Students League of New York, she held memberships in the Society of Etchers in the cities of Chicago and Dayton, the Women's Art Club of Cincinnati and the Baltimore Watercolor Club. Also included were memberships with the National Association of Women Artists, the Chicago Galleries Association, and the Association of Chicago Painters and Sculptors

Always leading participants in the artistic movement of the areas in which they lived, both she and her husband were charter members of the Academy of the Arts in Easton, Maryland. She also maintained active memberships locally in the Harbor Club, the Women's Club of Talbot County and the Talbot County Garden Club.

Having suffered for a number of years with heart disease, she died at her on January 12, 1969.