JAMES DODDS

inside front cover

1. Cromer Crabberwoodcut – edition of 150 23 x 29 cms 9 x 113⁄8 ins

www.messums.com

28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NGTelephone: +44 (0)20 7437 5545

JAMES DODDSWorking BoatsIncluding Bermuda Fitted Dinghies

2016

James Dodds’ pictures look as though they’ve been created with the use

of an adze, a caulking mallet and a rip saw, but that’s not surprising when

you discover that these were the tools he once wielded as a shipwright

before ever he picked up a paintbrush.

The disappearing shipbuilding skill of ‘lofting out’, of preparing a boat’s

lines with battens, is alive and well in James’ work; which is why his

paintings come as such a shock. The scantlings of his art are more than

just the dimensions of an aesthetic – they work – in the practical sense of

that word: you feel his boats would float.

They hang there, powerful receptacles of adventurous voyage, ready to

launch, simply awaiting your embarkation. They are the next best thing to

owning a vessel for real.

From his craft we can see how boats are put together; how timber

becomes planking after being riveted to a rib-cage, how a bow can thrust

aside seas after stems are backed up by aprons, how decking can support

rope-hauling sailors with an underlay of beams and shelves.

This is the anatomy of survival: when it works you get from Plymouth to

Virginia, when it doesn’t you don’t even get from Bodrum to Kos…

Brightlingsea in Essex, where James was born in 1957, is famous for

building boats that work; from Thames sailing barges to deep sea fishing

smacks. So, too, is Wivenhoe, the village, just a few miles up river, where

his studio is based.

Rites of passage

2.

Varuna, Horn Timbersoil on linen canvas

90 x 100 cms 353⁄8 x 393⁄8 ins

Here it was in 1820 that the Marquis of Anglesey swung himself into town

on crutches; having lost a leg at Waterloo, to order a 130 ton cutter, the

Pearl, which he then sailed round to the Solent to show off to his fellow

members of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

More than a century later the slipways of the village were sliding MTBs

and MLs into the muddy Colne to help fight another European war.

It is a sleepy river today but it has floated more than 5,000 craft over the

course of 200 years of shipbuilding, and it is where James wields his brush

in atavistic sweeps; as though he is rowing across the picture.

It was as a sailor that James got up close and personal with the sea, firstly

aboard a sailing dinghy and then on local smacks exploring the wetlands

of East Anglia. Then, as a schoolboy, he joined the Baltic ketch, Solvig, as

mate and aboard her he made passages to France, the Netherlands and

along the East Coast carrying delta tourists.

So much for salt water, next came the ships themselves and the 15-year-

old James became a trainee shipwright at Walter Cook’s Maldon boatyard

at the top end of the River Blackwater, where he started steaming planks,

flattening roves, and shaving spars. As he worked he found himself

visualising the end result.

Here he built barge boats, winkle brigs and smack skiffs. His work also

included re-converting Thames motor-barges back into spritsail-rigged

craft as the fashion for heritage sailing craft took off.

‘It’s a lovely thing being able to turn a three-dimensional drawing into a

boat,’ said James, with a wry smile: knowing that today he does the reverse.

He rues the loss of elm from the English countryside: ‘Elm is the best timber for

boat-building below the waterline and now it’s all gone. Yet once upon a time

it defined East Anglia. Constable painted those classic silhouetted trees against

the big skies.’

Another loss – which is captured for posterity in James’ pictures – is

plasma red Bermudan cedar, now also virtually unobtainable.

He abhors the loss of such majestic trees and tries to utilise timber where

he can: obsolete pier planking, driftwood and even the roof of a family beach

hut which was demolished in a great flood have all been used as ‘canvasses’.

The more he worked physically on individual boats, as a shipwright, the

greater grew his metaphysical vision of all craft and their universal message

of voyage: the rite of passage through life, until one day he could ignore

the bigger picture no longer.

And so he went to learn how to express himself effectively firstly at

Colchester Art School, then Chelsea before finally taking his MA at the

Royal College of Art.

‘All that gave me a self-confidence which I didn’t have when I left school,

but at the end of it, although people said London was the place to “make

it” as an artist, I was itching to get back on my home turf,’ he said.

3.

Stern of a Crabberoil on linen

90 x 60 cms 353⁄8 x 235⁄8 ins

Back on the banks of his beloved Colne where his father, Andrew, had

worked as an illustrator for the Radio Times – it was he who gave a face

to the Archers, and where his mother Wendy framed the pictures he sold

privately, James started making his striking linocuts.

They employ the same kind of naïve – in the sense of a child’s wonder

at the world – beauty that Stanley Spencer embraced; an England of

stained glass windows, church floor brass rubbings, and an arts and crafts

immediacy, in a timeline rolled into a fish-eye lens view.

James’ unique take on the waterworld is a place where the waves break

in frothy fingers on the shingle, just clear of beach boat keels, the skies

scream with banner clouds of forecast overhead, and gulls wheel across

a rising wind.

He will drive to each location, take photographs and make sketches: at

Cromer he arrived at dawn as the fishing boats were coming back ashore.

James was amazed to note that they are deliberately beached broadside

to; the crewman squatting on the gunnels to roll the seaward side higher

against the breakers while the tractor-driver gets a shackle on the stern.

Such detail is what makes these images so impressive.

We set off from the shed in James’ back garden where three, belt-driven

Victorian printing presses compress his wood and linocuts, to head for

the pub, but a big spring tide had cut off half the village.

‘They must have left the barrier open,’ said James: contemporary

Wivenhoe is now protected by a tidal gate, so instead we doubled back

to his studio which overlooks a part of the river which hadn’t flooded.

A low sun is glittered across the river and James tugged the mooring line

of his kayak to make sure she was lying in the rill. He and Catherine, his

wife, a former V&A book-binder, use the craft to explore local creeks.

It seems incredible that such an intimate marshy location can provide an

inspiration that is empathised with globally: he has exhibited in London,

New York and St Petersburg.

One clue to such international appeal is found inside the studio where

James shows me a paint-making machine which grinds and mixes pigment

and linseed oil at different speeds. Pigment which includes river mud.

‘I wash out the salt,’ he said, ‘after all sienna and umber are used as

pigments why not estuarine mud? They are all part of our planet.’

A universal vision rooted in Mother earth; why not indeed.

Dick DurhamRenowned sailor and yachting journalist

4.

Foureencarved shallow relief on oak wood panel

61 x 61 cms 24 x 24 ins

5.

Colchester Fishing Smackoil on board in 5 panels

153 x 610 cms 601⁄4 x 2401⁄8 ins

 

 “Home of Bermuda’s Greatest Treasures” Insurance courtesy of Colonial Insurance Co.

P.O. Box HM 1929Hamilton HM HX

Bermudawww.bermudamasterworks.org

Patron: HRH The Prince of Wales, KG KT GCB OM

Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art is delighted to have been gifted two outstanding works (nos. 6 and 7 in this catalogue) by James Dodds, marine architectural artist. This has been made possible by one of the benefactors to the museum and a patron of Messum’s gallery.

What makes these additions unique is the historical significance of the image painted on cedar, which was the wood used to make the working boats in Bermuda in the 1800’s that morphed into the Bermuda fitted dinghy. Stripped of its sails and rigging, the viewer is confronted by the form and simplicity of the fourteen foot vessel– not knowing that the crew comprised of six or seven bodies! These two images have enormous historical and cultural significance, which is at the heart of the Masterworks Museum.

Tom ButterfieldDirector of Masterworks, Museum of Bermuda Art

Bermuda Fitted Dinghies

opposite

6. Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “Victory”oil on cedar panel

103 x 123 cms 401⁄2 x 483⁄8 ins

James Dodds outside Masterworks

Acquired for Masterworks, Museum of Bermuda Art

7.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “HDC II”oil on canvas

90 x 120 cms 353⁄8 x 471⁄4 ins

Acquired for Masterworks, Museum of Bermuda Art

8.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “Shamrock” (bow detail)oil on canvas

90 x 90 cms 353⁄8 x 353⁄8 ins

9.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “Victory”oil on canvas

110 x 120 cms 431⁄4 x 471⁄4 ins

10.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “Victory II”oil on canvas

90 x 150 cms 353⁄8 x 59 ins

11.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “Shamrock”oil on canvas

90 x 150 cms 353⁄8 x 59 ins

12.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy “Victory II” (stern detail)oil on linen

90 x 90 cms 353⁄8 x 353⁄8 ins

13.

Number Oneoil on two roof panels

130 x 335 cms 511⁄8 x 1317⁄8 ins

14.

Winklebrig “Breeze”oil on roof panel

130 x 169 cms 51 x 661⁄2 ins

15.

Grey Crabberoil on linen

90 x 120 cms 353⁄8 x 471⁄4 ins

16.

New Timbers on a Norfolk Crabberoil on linen

111 x 90 cms 431⁄2 x 351⁄2 ins

17.

“Peapod” Under Constructionoil on linen

97 x 76 cms 38 x 297⁄8 ins

18.

Roskilde 19 ft. Eel Boatoil on linen canvas

60 x 90 cms 235⁄8 x 353⁄8 ins

19.

Building a Grand Lake Canoe, “Kingfisher”oil on linen

97 x 97 cms 38 x 38 ins

20.

Whelker, Sternoil on linen

100 x 100 cms 393⁄8 x 393⁄8 ins

21.

Old Aldeburgh Beach Boatoil on linen

81 x 92 cms 32 x 36 ins

22.

Orange Lifeboatoil on linen

95 x 95 cms 373⁄8 x 373⁄8 ins

23.

Red Boatwoodcut - edition of 50

107 x 107 cms 421⁄8 x 421⁄8 ins

Biography1957 Born in Brightlingsea1972 Mate on Baltic Trader, Solvig Apprentice Shipwright, Walter Cook & Son, Maldon

(until 1976)1973 Shipbuilding Industry Training Board, Southampton

(until 1974)1976 Colchester School of Art (Foundation)1977 Chelsea School of Art (until 1980)1981 Royal College of Art (until 1984) (won Anstruther

Award 1983)1984 Started Jardine Press, Stoke-by-Nayland2007 Received Doctorate from the University of Essex

Selected Group Exhibitions1991 Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts1993 “Six Artists”, Wetzlar, Germany1994 John Callahan Gallery, Boston, USA1995 “4 from Wivenhoe”, Courcoux & Courcoux, Stockbridge “Ultra Marine”, Liverpool Maritime Museum “Forth, Tyne, Dogger”, Brewery Arts, Cirencester1996 Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University “The Sea”, Black Swan Arts, Frome1997 City Art Gallery, Leeds “An English Perspective”, Union of Artists, St Petersburg,

Russia “Marine Artists”, Mall Galleries, London1998 Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts1999 Eastern Open, (Best in Show) King’s Lynn Arts Centre,

Norfolk Mystic Seaport; New York Ship Terminal, USA Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts2000 Hunting Art Prizes, Royal College of Art Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts “Alphabet Soup”, Printworks, Sudbury2001 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2003 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2006 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2007 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2008 “EastCoastInfluences”,Messum’s,CorkStreet,London Geedon Gallery, Fingringhoe, Colchester “Salthouse 08: SEAhouse, LIGHThouse, SPIRIThouse”,

Salthouse, Essex The Nottage Maritime Institute, Wivenhoe, Essex2009 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2010 “Atelier, Artists & Artists’ Estates”, Messum’s, Cork Street,

London “EastCoastInfluences”,Messum’s,CorkStreet,London2011 “New English Art Club and Others”, Geedon Gallery,

Fingringhoe, Colchester2013 “Masterpieces, Art and East Anglia” Sainsbury Centre, UEA,

Norwich.2014 “Easterlies”, Abbey Walk Gallery, Grimsby.2014 Messum’s, Cork Street, London

Shipshape Tour2001 Firstsite at The Minories Art Gallery, Colchester2002 Whitstable & Herne Bay Museums & Art Galleries, Kent Black Swan Arts, Frome, Somerset Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham2003 National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Falmouth2003–4 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich2004 Messum’s Fine Art, Cork Street, London

Shipshape & The Year of the Sea2005 Time & Tide, Great Yarmouth Buckenham Gallery, Southwold Hartlepool Art Gallery, Hartlepool Thurso & Wick, Scotland Fermoy Gallery, King’s Lynn Arts Centre (with Guy Taplin) Hayletts Gallery, Maldon Chappel Galleries, Chappel

Selected Solo Exhibitions1983 “Icarus”, The Minories, Colcester1984 “Peter Grimes”, at the 37th Aldeburgh Festival1985 Ship of Fools”, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne The Quay Theatre Gallery, Sudbury1986 “Fish, Flesh or Fowl”, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich

(with Bridget Heriz-Smith and Jane Truzzi-Franconi)1989 Printworks, Colchester (and in 1990,1995 and 1997) Bircham Contemporary Arts, Norfolk (and in 1992, 1995

and 1999)1990 “The Shipwright’s Trade”, at the 43rd Aldeburgh Festival Chappel Galleries, Chappel, Essex (and in 1994) St John Street Gallery, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk1991 “From the Glasshouse”, Heffers Gallery, Cambridge1992 Sue Rankin Gallery, London (two man show with John

Bratby RA) “Peter Grimes”, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich1995 “Wild Man”, at the 48th Aldeburgh Festival Simbouras Gallery, Athens, Greece1998 “On The Beach”, at the 51st Aldeburgh Festival “Waterworks”, Printworks, Sudbury “Boatshow”, North House Gallery, Manningtree2000 “Full Circle”, at the 53rd Aldeburgh Festival2001 North House Gallery, Manningtree (two man show with

John Reay) “Blue Boat”, University of Essex Gallery “Shipshape” Tour Firstsite at The Minories Art Gallery, Colchester2002 Whitstable & Herne Bay Museums & Art Galleries, Kent Black Swan Arts, Frome, Somerset Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham2003 National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Falmouth2003–4 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

2004 Messum’s Fine Art, Cork Street, London “Shipshape” & “The Time of the Sea” Tours2005 Time & Tide, Great Yarmouth Buckenham Gallery, Southwold Hartlepool Art Gallery, Hartlepool Thurso and Wick, Scotland Fermoy Gallery, King’s Lynn Arts Centre (with Guy Taplin) Hayletts Gallery, Maldon “Lifeboat”, Chappel Galleries, Chappel, Essex2006 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2007 “Fore and Aft”, University of Essex Gallery Messum’s, Cork Street, London2008 “Vessels of the East Coast”, St Barbe Museum & Art

Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire “Mainly Linocuts”, Hayletts Gallery, Maldon, Essex2009 “American Boats”, Messum’s Fine Art, Cork Street, London “25 Years of Jardine Press”, Messum’s Fine Art, Cork Street,

London Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk (two man show with

Stephen Hendersen)2010 “James Dodds and the Jardine Press”, Lewis Elton Gallery,

University of Surrey. Dowling Walsh, Rockland, Maine, USA2011 Church Street Gallery, Saffron Walden, Essex Messum’s, Cork Street, London.2012 Dowling Walsh, Rockland, Maine, USA Drang Gallery, Padstow. Hayletts Gallery, Maldon, Essex.2013 Messum’s, Cork Street, London2013 Bircham Contemporary Arts, Holt, Norfolk2015 Messum’s, Cork Street, London.2015/16 “Wood to Water”, Firstsite, Colchester2016 Messum’s, Cork Street, London.

CollectionsBritten-Pears Library, Aldeburgh; Victoria and Albert Museum; Clacton & Rochford Hospitals; Chelmsford and Essex Museums; Ipswich Borough Council, Museums and Galleries; Colchester Borough Council; Horniman Museum, London; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; UCS East Contemporary Art Collection, Ipswich; MMoFA, Madison, Georgia, USA; The Sainsbury Centre, UEA Norwich; and many private collectors

Thanks to:Royal Naval Dockyard Museum, Bermuda

back cover imageRed Boat (no. 23.)

woodcut - edition of 50 107 x 107 cms 421⁄8 x 421⁄8 ins

front cover imageWinklebrig “Breeze” (no. 14.)

oil on roof panel 130 x 169 cms 51 x 661⁄2 ins

“This is an artist, that as a former boatbuilder, is simply at one with his subject.”

John Franks

TIDE LINES

JAMES DODDS

TIDE LINES

Ian Collins

DO

DD

ST

IDE

LIN

ES

Ian Collins

In this richly illustrated volume Ian Collins charts the voyage

James Dodds has made from boatbuilder to artist.

“It is not often that art is able to curtsy to craft – but James Dodds’fabulous and strangely moving paintings of wooden boat building are a superb testament to the skills of marine craftsmen.”Felix Dennis, publisher, poet and art collector.

“Magnificent. A re-vision. The marvellous as he has shown it.”Seamus Heaney on James Dodds’ response to his poem From Lightenings viii.

(Jacket) North Norfolk Beach Boat triptych. 2009Oil on linen. 38 x 116in (96 x 295cm)

THE LIFE AND ART OF JAMES DODDS

IN THIS EVOCATIVE VOLUME Ian Collins chartsthe voyage James Dodds has made both from the literal tothe poetic and from shipwright to painter, printmaker andfine-press publisher.

Richly illustrated with pictures spanning more than threedecades of inspired endeavour, the biography adds a sup-porting cast of artists, poets and other nautical characters.

It also includes a wider study of “boats the sea has made”– vernacular vessels from the Shetlands to the Scillies andacross the Atlantic to New England which punctuate theartist’s intriguing story.

IAN COLLINS offers the perspective of a writer steepedin the art of East Anglia. His engaging text is informed bya decade of writing about James in exhibition cataloguesand regional books, and also draws on the artist’s ownbiographical notes.

TIDE LINES… marks on the shore left at the tide’shighest point, made of whatever flotsam and jetsam, litterand treasure, the sea flings up.The tides’ lunar cycle couldalso be a metaphor for the ebb and flow of the creativeprocess.The line between land and sea is constant and everchanging, and this state of flux and fixture is the place thatart inhabits. From the small craft of the shore line JamesDodds has created a truly seaworthy art.

Pen and ink drawing of Ian Collins by Andrew Doddsfor East Anglia Drawn, 1984

IAN COLLINSBorn in Norfolk, and now living in Southwold andLondon, Ian Collins hails from a long line of Broadlandboat-builders. His writings on East Anglian art haveappeared in the Eastern Daily Press since 1978 and widelyelsewhere. His books include A Broad Canvas (1990), MakingWaves: Artists in Southwold (2005) and Water Marks: Art in EastAnglia (2010), with monographs on Guy Taplin (2007),John McLean (2009) and John Craxton (2011). He hasco-produced a television documentary on Margaret Mellis(1993) and appeared on BBC2’s Coast and The Culture Show,also curating exhibitions from the 50th Aldeburgh Festivalin 1997 to Salthouse 08 and the Mary Newcomb memo-rial show at Norwich Castle (2009). He has worked withMessum’s in London’s Cork Street for many years.

Salthouse Altarpiece (Cromer Crabber) triptych. 2008 Oil on linen. 36 x 108in (92 x 275cm) (see p174–5)

by Ian Collins

Published by Jardine Press with Studio Publications240 x 300mm, 216 pp. 300 illustrations in full colourEdition of 200 Special Hardbacks in slipcases, signed and numbered: £150(Including exclusive hand-printed, signed and numbered linocut, worth £250)Standard Hardback edition with Jacket: £35

IAN COLLINS is a writer and curator who hails from a long line of Norfolk boat-builders. His Tide Lines book on James Dodds was runner-up for the 2013 New Angle Prize for Literature. The title also won the Art and Photography prize in the 2012 East Anglian Book Awards. Announcing the award judge Mary Muir said:

“This is a book written from the heart by someone who not only cares passionately for our region but for the artists who help us to see, understand and celebrate it.

“Tide Lines is a homage to one of our most individual and authentic artistic voices. This beautifully produced and illustrated book charts, in rich biographical detail, the journey of James Dodds from shipwright to internationally regarded artist and fine-press publisher. It is also a wonderful homage to boats, the art of boat-building and what it means to live in a place shaped physically and culturally by the sea.”

Ian has also written monographs on John Craxton, John McLean and Guy Taplin. His Water Marks: Art and East Anglia volume features many Messum’s artists – including James Dodds. James was also included in the Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia book Ian co-wrote and edited for the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, which was the overall winner in the 2013 East Anglian Book Awards.

“Tide Lines is a joy from start to finish and in these miserable days is one of those rare books that make one glad to be alive.”Review by Ken Worpole in “Caught by the River”

“This is a book to treasure, relish and enjoy on many different levels.”Review by Peter Willis in Classic Boat

“Realism and mystery are two opposing strands whose friction make James’s art so compelling.”Review of Tide Lines by David Burnett in The Marine Quarterly

Ashortfilm,“ShapedbytheSea”,aboutJamesDodds,produced by Emily Harris for Classic Yacht TV released in May 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDoPZf_Iooc

ISBN 978-1-910993-02-6 Publication No: CDX Published by David Messum Fine Art © David Messum Fine Art

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage

and retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.The Studio, Lords Wood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire.

Tel: 01628 486565 www.messums.comPhotography: Doug Atfield Printed by DLM-Creative

TimelapsefilmofJamesDoddspaintingColchesterfishingsmack “Peace” in fourteen days. Lofting out the traditional way and

then painting onto 5 panels.https://youtu.be/Co0VrnreSHA

JAMES DODDS

A book about James Dodds

www.messums.com 9 781910 993026

ISBN 978-1-910993-02-6