Artist and influential teacher, born in County Durham, who gained a scholarship to Dame Allen’s School, Newcastle, 1934–41, then received a first-class honours degree at King’s College 1942–3 and 1946–50, studies interrupted by Royal Navy service. Dobson stayed on to work as a tutorial student under Lawrence Gowing, Roger de Grey and Christopher Cornford, later becoming a full-time member of staff at Newcastle University. An accidental head injury led to his retirement in 1989. Dobson was a representational and abstract painter, the Euston Road School and especially Victor Pasmore being influences. He showed in London and Paris and had a memorial exhibition at University of Northumbria, Newcastle, in 1994.