The Art Museum of West Virginia University and The Friends of the Museum announce the next “Art Up Close!” event of the spring semester, focusing on individual works of art from the museum collection. The March 12 presentation will feature a work by African-American artist Joseph Eldridge Dodd.

Titled “Joseph Dodd: Framing Identity in Bluefield, View from My Room,” the lecture will be presented by Rhonda Reymond, assistant professor of art history in the WVU School of Art & Design, and will focus on a painting Dodd created in 1938. The painting hung in Stewart Hall on the downtown campus for many years.

Joseph Eldridge Dodd (1907-1945) was a painter and art professor. A native of Parkersburg, W.Va., Dodd attended the West Virginia Collegiate Institute and the National Academy of Design and taught at Bluefield State College in the 1930s. He furthered his studies at Yale University where he won several awards. Dodd died in 1945, after serving in World War II. The WVU Art Collection includes numerous artworks by Dodd, including examples of cover illustrations he did for publications such as “The Crisis.”

The “Art Up Close!” presentations are held from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Museum Education Center (formerly the Erickson Alumni Center) adjacent to the WVU Creative Arts Center. All the events are free and open to the public.

Reymond received her master’s degree and a doctorate in art history from the University of Georgia, where her fields were American Art and Architecture and European Art and Architecture of the Nineteenth Century. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a double major in historic preservation and interior design from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Reymond’s teaching fields are Baroque, 19th-century, American and African-American art and architecture. She also teaches a survey of art history for non-art majors and the art history undergraduate capstone course.

Each “Art Up Close!” presentation features an original work of art and commentary by WVU faculty, followed by a question and answer session and light refreshments.

This series of lectures is designed to give an in-depth look at a single work of art selected from the WVU Art Collection. Audience members will have the opportunity to view the actual work of art.

For more information, contact the Art Museum of WVU at (304) 293-2141 or see the website at: http://www.ccarts.wvu.edu/art_museum.

-WVU-

cl/03/11/13

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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