B. 1943 - By the time John Laddie Dill was 28, he was offered his first one-man exhibit at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York. Dill's talent and ingenuity have combined to make him a highly regarded national and internationally known contemporary artist. His work is owned by many private collectors and is included in the permanent collections of more than 25 museums.

In 1968, while Dill was still in school, he and Chuck Arnoldi formed a small framing business, "Acme Framing Company", and the artists engaged in many serious discussions concerning what they considered to be the death of painting.

As an apprentice printer at Gemini, located in West Hollywood, Dill had the opportunity to work closely with such established artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claus Oldenberg and Roy Lichtenstein. Dialog between artists of the 1970s resulted in experiments with materials previously not considered traditional art media, such as neon, sticks, wax, cement and the relationship of those materials to each other.

Dill then moved on to working three-dimensionally and filled a room in his studio with 10,000 pounds of silica sand. It was there that he mixed light and sand to create pieces which were more like painting than sculpture. During the 1970's Dill also began experimenting with wall pieces using cement in contrast with the smooth surface of glass. Using natural pigments he incorporates, in his work, a wide range of colors from brick reds derived, from iron oxide, coal blacks from black sulphur, yellows and naturally mined cobalt blues. Combinations of these natural pigments create a variety of brilliant but still "organic" colors.