Margaret Dodd was born in Berri, South Australia, in 1941. Although she wanted to be an artist, the cultural conventions of the 1950s led her to become a high school art teacher. In 1964 she accompanied her academic husband to his new post at Yale, which meant that she was unable to work, but she was able to enjoy the riches of the American art museums. Her fellow academic wives were reading Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, and their lively discussions about the constraints laid upon women had a significant impact on her thinking.
In mid-1965 her husband was posted to the University of California at Davis, which led to her studying sculpture with Tio Giaimbruni and ceramics with Robert Arneson, one of the seminal figures in the Funk movement.
She participated in the first group exhibition of Funk artists at Museum West in San Francisco, where her work wss favourably noticed by Time magazine.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2012
- Last updated:
- 2017
