Laddie John Dill, a Los Angeles native, was born in Long Beach and attended Santa Monica High School. He graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1968. At age 28, Dill had his first one-man exhibit at the Illeana Sonnabend Gallery in New York. Dill's list of exhibitions include galleries and museums from such venues as Seoul, Paris, Nogoya, Japan; and Helsinki, Findland; to New York, Kansas City, Seattle, and throughout Northern and Southern California.

Laddie is the recipient of two National Endowment grants; one for sculpture and one for painting, and a Guggenheim Fellowship for painting. He has also taught extensively at UCLA, UCIrvine, Art Center in Pasadena, and lectured in numerous universities and art institutions across the United States.