Born in Fairburn, Georgia, Lamar Dodd taught in rural Alabama before enrolling at the Arts Students League in New York. He returned to Alabama in 1933, where he found inspiration in the techniques and styles of other southern artists. Four years later, as part of a national movement to incorporate working artists into universities, he became a faculty member at the University of Georgia. In the 1940s, Dodd helped raise the prominence of UGA’s art department, now named in his honor as the Lamar Dodd School of Art.