Margaret dodd biography
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In 1948 interpretation first FX Holden furled off say publicly assembly score at Accepted Motors soupзon Adelaide sit was advertised as ‘Australia’s own car’. Nearly glimmer decades subsequent, in 1969, South Aussie sculptor endure filmmaker Margaret Dodd captured this superstardom of say publicly times – and picture state – in take it easy first instrumentality Holden sculpture.
This wasn’t representation first about she locked away engaged revamp the truck in break down ceramics routine. Between 1965 and 1968 Margaret difficult to understand studied milk the Academy of Calif. with Parliamentarian Arneson dispatch David Gilhooley, proponents admire the Quail Ceramics bias. There, Dodd was pleased to assemble and show off clay cars, trucks take motorbikes, creating her Fake Funk Truck, 1965, Morris Minor, 1967, and Kawasaki motorbike, 1970. However, whereas Sue Rowley writes, go on than concert party other mockup, ‘it admiration in remove Holden desert the review of post-war and coexistent Australian suavity finds academic incisive expression’.
Holden with tresses curlers, 1977, was collective of interpretation first most recent the instrumentation sculptures conceived by Dodd for bountiful in coffee break pioneering reformist film This Woman bash Not a Car, 1982. After reversive to Country from U.s., and people a surgically remove sojourn end in Amsterdam, Dodd found herself marooned comport yourself (somewhat ironically) Holden Mound (at ditch time, say publicly last intrude on depiction bus route). An human
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In 1957, at the age of sixteen, Margaret Dodd received the book Design and decoration for the home as her school art prize. Her heart sank, as she later remembered, ‘right down into my brown shoes’. The young and aspiring artist knew, even then, that there must be more to life than a woman’s assigned role to the home. With this same conviction, two decades later, Dodd created the avant-garde body of work, This Woman is Not a Car.
The series – consisting of a film and ceramic Holden sculptures dressed as babies, mothers and brides – had its origins in feminist concerns. The artist first became informed of gender theory and politics in 1964, when she read Betty Friedan’s landmark book, The feminine mystique. Dodd was newly a mother, wife and teacher and living in America, where her academic husband was working at Yale University in Hartford, Connecticut.
Liberated by Friedan’s acknowledgement of the constraints placed upon women in modern society, she returned to study (having previously attended Adelaide Teachers College and the South Australian School of Art), enrolling in a Bachelor of Arts at the University of California, Davis. Studying art with Robert Arneson, Dodd became part of the new Funk Ceramics movement, which rebelled against the formal conventions of the p
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- Australian National Gallery, Canberra, ACT (collected in)
- Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS (collected in)
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC (collected in)
- Phillip Morris Collection, Australia (collected in)
- Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton, VIC (collected in)
- Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA (collected in)
- Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA (collected in)
- National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, ACT (collected in)
- Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum), Sydney, NSW (collected in)
- Australian National Gallery, Canberra, ACT (collected in)
- Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS (collected in)
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC (collected in)
- Phillip Morris Collection, Australia (collected in)
- Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton, VIC (collected in)
- Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA (collected in)
- Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA (collected in)
- National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, ACT (collected in)
- Private Collections (collected in)