October 12, 1937 - April 27, 2025
James G. Todd, jr. died in Missoula, MT on April 27, 2025 from the complications of life long lung impairment. He was born October 12, 1937 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and after moving around the north west, his family settled in Great Falls, MT in 1948. There he learned to play snooker at Hussman's Pool Hall, started friendships that lasted until his death, and began a lifelong devotion to art, philosophy, and political activism. Todd studied visual art in Great Falls MT privately and then at the College of Great Falls. He continued his studies at the Chicago Art Institute, the University of Chicago and the University of Montana in Missoula.
In 1961, he was inducted into the US Army, and as an infantry medic in West Germany met his life long love, friend and partner, Julia Brozio. They were married in Great Falls in 1963. Between 1965 and 1970 Todd completed two master's degrees at the University of Montana and taught English and Art in Germany, where his son Seamus was born in 1967.
Outside one year in Florida, Todd resided in Missoula since 1968. During this time, his second and third sons, Riel and Baird, joined the family. For nearly 30 years, he taught at the University of Montana. He spent 3 years as the Humanities Program Director, 8 years as the Chairman of the Department of Art, and 12 years as the head of the printmaking program. In the art department he initiated and supervised the successful national accreditation of the University of Montana Department of Art, helped lead the negotiations for the first academic art exchange between the University of Montana and the Peoples' Republic of China, and receive one of the first German Academic research exchange grants in East Germany after the fall of the Communist government in 1989.
While most remembered for his wood engravings and paintings, Todd was equally proud of his efforts to design a liberal arts program for the inmates at Montana State Penitentiary, campaigning for Native American Studies at the university and in public schools, serving on the first University Faculty Collective Bargaining Committee, and in his final years working in the Faculty Senate for the rights of adjunct faculty.
Until his death, Todd exhibited his work and published internationally. He was a member of the Wood Engravers Network in the U.S., the English Society of Wood Engravers, a Senior Fellow in England's Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, and was a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.
Todd was preceded in death by his brother Michael, his father James, his mother Doris, and his son Seamus. Followed in life are his wife Julia Brozio, his two sons, Riel and Baird, two brothers, Patrick and Terence, his daughter-in-law Sherri Scherrer and his granddaughters Hanna Todd and Sapphire Scherrer and Africa and Guadalupe Todd.
In lieu of flowers donations may be given in his memory to the University of Montana Library, the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, Amnesty International, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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