Dodge, William de Leftwich, US-american painter, fresco and theater decorator , illustrator,( 1867 Liberty/Va., †1935 New York, worked in Paris und New York . Son of female painter Mary Lucinda Leftwich, and William Miner Dodge , successful insurance agent from New York. 1877 draw the family to Brooklyn. D.s older sister becomes a painter, his brother Robert D. - glass painter, who works only for Tiffany, later independently. With him D realizes. frequently larger equipment projects. 1879 come D. with brothers and sisters and the mother for their art study to Munich, where he begins to paint. 1881 move the family to Paris. There from 1882 he studied at the Fine Arts academy , and from 1884 - at the Art Academy in Berlin under Max Michel; from 1885 - again in Paris in the Academy , in the studio of Jean Léon Gérôme. At the same time D visits. the Acad. Colarossi by Raphaël Collin. He begins to paint in the monumental style of some French painters of the last third of the 19.century. The first large success brought him monumental painting The Death of Minnehaha, 1885 (the whereabouts unknown ), David and Goliath, with which he debted1888 successfully in Paris Salon. 1889 Dodge go to New York and refer a studio together with George Brandt Bridgman. Works on illustrations for Collier´ s, Scribner´ s Century magazines, and a large popular panorama for the Chicago fire station. From 1891 he applies also wall decorations and took part in the World exhibition in Chicago in 1893; in the same year order for the kolossale cover "Glorification of the Arts and Sciences" in the administration building of the exhibition. 1894 - return to Paris. 1895 State for cover painting "Ambition" in the Library of Congress. Beside wall paintings he created in this time portraits of highranking personalities. He pulls 1907 in Mansion Francesca in Setauket, Long Island/N.Y., which was reconstructed in the his own style. 1918 as war painter in Paris, provide sketches at the front from Rheims to Verdun, , later also at English troops at the front. In 1919 he paints the signing of the contract of Versailles , 1926 journey to Italy to the mother, paint watercolor series of greek temple plants in Sicily. 1930 journey to Yucatán/Mexico, on which he holds Maya Monuments in a watercolur seria. - D.s Oeuvre enclosure mythological, all-fermented. and religious paintings , portraits, landscapes,illustrations and Aas well as large wall , cover paintings and mosaics. He takes thereby a position between American impressionism and French academicism. This very successful style corresponded to the taste of the elevated amer. middle class, which regained itself in traditonal scenes with the representation from stability, harmony, suitability and behaviour . This form of amer. impressionism stood in the glaring contrast to realistic painters of the Ash CAN School.

WORKS Wall and Cover paintings : ALBANY/NewYork Flag Room. BOSTON/Mass., Saxon Theater. BROOKLYN/N.Y., Acad. of Music. BUFFALO/N.Y., City Hall. CEDAR FALLS/Iowa, Teachers College, Libr. KANSAS CITY/Mo., Orpheum Theater.

ExhibitionsE: New York: 1889 Kirby´s Amer. AG; 1928, ´31 Milch Gall.; 1931 Brooklyn (N.Y.), Brooklyn Mus. – G: Paris: 1888-1907 Salon; 1889 WA / 1893 Chicago, World´s Columbian Expos. / 1895 Berlin, Great Art Exhibition / 1915 San Francisco, Panama-Pacific Expos. / 1988 Greenville (S.C.), County Mus. of Art: Impressionism and the South (K) / 1989-90 Norfolk: Amer. artists at the Universal Expos. (K; Wander-Ausst.).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Artist Lexicons by Saur and Thieme/Becker (in German) Samuels, 1976; AAW II, 1981; Fielding, 1984; Falk, 1985; Bénézit IV, 1999. – S.D. Kimbrough, Drawn from life. The story of four Amer. artists whose friendship & work began in Paris during the 1880´s, Jackson, Miss. 1976; F.Platt, Amer. art j. 14:1982(2)55-63; C.D. Nickerson, ibid. 16:1984(Sommer)49-77; Architectural digest 49:1992(Jan.) A3; The mag. antiques 126:1984(Sept.)503; 128:1985(Dez.)1157; 148:1995(Nov.)556; Art and antiques 18:1995(Mai)25.

Inscription: signed lower right " W.Leftwich - Dodge " , on reverse of the canvas - stamp of a French canvas producer.

Technique: oil on canvas. Original period gold-plated frame.

Measurements: unframed w 23 5/8" x h 32 " (60 x 81 cm), framed w 31 1/2" x h 39 3/4" ( 80 x 101 cm).

Condition: in very good condition.