Richard Staples (Dick) Dodge (January 18, 1918 – May 24, 1974) was an American illustrator.

Early life

Born in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

in 1918, Dick Dodge attended several colleges on scholarship, including the

Art Center School Art Center College of Design (stylized as ArtCenter College of Design) is a private art college in Pasadena, California. History ArtCenter College of Design was founded in 1930 in downtown Los Angeles as the Art Center School. In 1935, Fred R ...

, Chouinard School, and

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

Summer Session where he studied with Lionel Feininger and Frederick Taubes. He transferred to Cincinnati Art Academy beginning October 1939, attending on an out-of-town full scholarship from the Arts Students League. Dodge enlisted in the US Air Corps on October 27, 1942, serving at Patterson Air Field in

Hamilton, Ohio Hamilton is a city in and the county seat of Butler County, Ohio, United States. Located north of Cincinnati, Hamilton is the second largest city in the Greater Cincinnati area and the 10th largest city in Ohio. The population was 63,399 at th ...

for about 4 months before being honorably discharged due to health issues.

Career

Following his service, Dodge resumed studies at Cincinnati Art Academy in the 1943 school year. In August 1943 he accepted a position at

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

, where his friend

James Flora James Flora (January 25, 1914 ‒ July 9, 1998), best known for his distinctive and idiosyncratic album cover art for RCA Victor and Columbia Records during the 1940s and 1950s, was also a prolific commercial illustrator from the 1940s to th ...

had recently been hired by

Alex Steinweiss Alexander Steinweiss (March 24, 1917 – July 17, 2011) was an American graphic design artist known for inventing album cover art. Early life Alex Steinweiss was born on March 24, 1917, in Brooklyn. His father was a women's shoe designer fr ...

. Recalling those early years at Columbia Records,

Ginnie Hofmann Ginnie Hofmann (September 30, 1920 – December 29, 2014) was an American artist and illustrator most noted for her illustrations in the ''Joy of Cooking'' and her paper dolls in '' Betsy McCall'' magazine. Early years Born as Virginia Ritsman ...

recalled Flora saying, "Everything will be fine. Dick Dodge is here." According to several contemporary sources, Dodge was hired as

Art Director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

when Flora was promoted to advertising executive. But he never served in that role (or served only briefly), as Robert M. Jones became Art Director after Flora. Using his connections with Flora and Jones, who both later worked for

RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Aris ...

(Jones as Art Director), Dodge contributed to the album (LP) catalog of both labels producing artwork for the covers and sleeves of material ranging from children's stories to popular song to classical music – for example, the original cast recording cover for Paint Your Wagon. Dodge's commercial work also included periodicals, children's books, and dust jackets for dozens of titles published by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

Harcourt Brace Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...

, and

MacMillan MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to: People * McMillan (surname) * Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan * Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician * James MacMillan, Scottish composer * William Duncan MacMillan ...

. Notable examples of his children's book illustrations include ''Too Many Sisters'' and ''The First Book of Boys Cooking'', both authored by Jerrold Beim. He illustrated several of the covers for

P.G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jee ...

books published by Simon & Schuster as well as ''Zorba the Greek'' by

Nikos Kazantzakis Nikos Kazantzakis ( el, ; 2 March ( OS 18 February) 188326 October 1957) was a Greek writer. Widely considered a giant of modern Greek literature, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in nine different years. Kazantzakis's no ...

. Between 1954 and 1958, Dodge contributed illustrations to Ford Times magazine, including the cover illustration of the December 1955 edition (Vol. 47, No. 12), titled "Christmas Tree Highway". Throughout his life, Dodge created artwork in many media and styles, with influences ranging from Regionalism to

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

. Dodge was an active member of the

American Watercolor Society The American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866, is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States. Qualifications AWS judges the work of a painter before granting admission to the soc ...

from 1956 until his death. According to his ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' obituary, he was a charter member of the Artist Guild of

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

as well as being a member of the Illustrators Society of New York.

Selected Bibliography (Illustrator)

* 1953 – ''Zorba the Greek'' * 1954 – ''The Return of Jeeves'' * 1955 – ''Bertie Wooster Sees It Through'' * 1956 – ''The Butler Did It'' * 1956 – ''Too Many Sisters'' * 1957 – ''The First Book of Boys Cooking'' * 1971 – ''Jeeves and the Tie That Binds''

References

External links

Treasury of Great Children's Books

The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dodge, Dick 1918 births 1974 deaths Artists from California Artists from Connecticut Painters from New York City American children's book illustrators Deaths from colorectal cancer 20th-century American painters American male painters Artists from Sacramento, California Art Academy of Cincinnati alumni Deaths from cancer in New York (state) United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II 20th-century American male artists