James Craig Annan

Francis Dodd (1874-1949), portrait painter, landscape artist and printmaker, was born in Holyhead in Wales, the son of a Wesleyan minister. He trained at the Glasgow School of Art alongside his better-known contemporary, also represented in Te Papa's collection, Muirhead Bone, who married Dodd's sister. At Glasgow, Dodd won the Haldane Scholarship in 1893 and then travelled around France, Italy and later Spain. He returned to England in 1895 and settled in Manchester, becoming friends with the leading modern architet Charles Holden before moving to Blackheath in London in 1904.

During World War I in 1916, he was appointed an official war artist by Charles Masterman, the head of the War Propaganda Bureau. Serving on the Western Front, he produced more than 30 portraits of senior military figures, many of which are in Te Papa's collection in the form of postcards. However, he also earned a considerable peacetime reputation for the quality of his watercolours and portrait commissions. He was appointed a trustee of the Tate Gallery in 1929, a position he held for six years, and was elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1927 and a full Member in 1935. From 1911 Dodd lived at Arundel House in Blackheath, South London, until he took his own life in 1949.

James Craig Annan (1864-1946), the son of the photographer Thomas Annan, studied Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at Anderson's College, Glasgow, before joining the family firm. His work was exhibited by Alfred Stieglitz in New York and illustrated in the journal <em>Camera Work.</em> Annan was a member of the photographic association The Linked Ring and in 1904 became the first President of the International Society of Pictorial Photographers. He renewed public interest in the work of the pioneering photographers Hill & Adamson by producing exquisite photogravures from their calotype negatives. In later years he became an etchings dealer and no longer exhibited his own work.

Almost certainly Dodd had become aware of Annan, ten years his senior, when he was a student at Glasgow. Both artists were perfectionists in their respective media. Dodd's characteristically perceptive portrayal of Annan renders him as a man of precision and self-confidence, with a touch of quizzical humour. Besides Dodd, Te Papa has two portraits of Annan by William Strang in its collection (1952-0003-95 and 1963-0001-43). All three were donated by Sir John Ilott, print collector extraordinary.

See:

National Galleries Scotland, https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/james-craig-annan

Wikipedia, 'Francis Dodd', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Dodd_(artist)

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    April 2018