| As part of its 40th Anniversary
Celebration, in March the Mendocino Art Center will exhibit its collection of original
prints by Dorr Bothwell. Dorr has had a long history with the Mendocino Art Center as a
treasured painter, collage artist, printmaker and instructor. She celebrated her 95th
birthday at the Art Center in 1997 and has been invited to attend the Second Saturday
opening reception on March 13th, from 5:00-8:00 p.m. Last
year, Dorr Bothwell donated original prints of fifty six separate subjects to Jennie Zacha
(Mendocino Art Center Co-Founder with her husband, Bill Zacha) for the Mendocino Art
Center. The collection includes 705 prints representing approximately three decades of
Bothwell's work, from 1961 to 1988. Her subjects are wide ranging, representing her years
in Mendocino and travels elsewhere, featuring African, Balinese, English, Hawaiian,
Japanese and Mexican motifs. Works for sale will range from $275 to $500. Sales proceeds
will establish a Jennie Zacha Scholarship Fund (60%) and will also benefit the Mendocino
Art Center (40%).
Teaching and Exhibitions. Dorr has been teaching
since 1944 and last taught at the Mendocino Art Center in 1997. Over four decades, she has
taught at the California School of Fine Arts, the San Francisco Art Institute, Parsons
Schools of Design and periodically at MAC. Her prints have been exhibited at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Victoria and Albert
Museum in London, and Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Her drawings are included in many
college and university collections and California museums, including the San Diego Museum
of Fine Arts, the Santa Barbara Museum of Fine Arts, and Sacramento's Crocker Museum.
Since the early 1950s, Dorr has had one person shows at the M. H. De Young Memorial Museum
and galleries in San Francisco and Mendocino, including the Zacha Bay Window.
Years in Mendocino. Dorr's remembrance of first
coming to Mendocino was printed in the May 1989 A&E in celebration of MAC's
30th Anniversary: "I kind of follow straws in the wind, and that's how everything
worked out, how I came to Mendocino. A friend of mine from Art School, whom I hadn't seen
for twenty five years, recommended me to Bill Zacha. I was busy, so I recommended Hilda
Pertha to Bill, and she came, and later I taught a summer course at the Art Center and
fell in love with the place. All the wood, for example, really excited me, the wonderful
gray wooden fences. I did a whole series of close-ups of the wood, all the grains and
knotholes, and when it was shown in San Francisco, [the series] sold out. The very tempo
of living here has influenced my art. I think there is a magic in this place, something
very special that some people call a kind of 'power center,' like Mt. Shasta, and I think
that this was the moving spirit of Bill Zacha, that remarkable catalyst." An oil
painting created jointly by Dorr Bothwell and Bill Zacha will be included in this exhibit,
courtesy of the Zacha Bay Window Gallery, located on Main Street in Mendocino.
Dorr Bothwell is not only a renowned artist. She is
well-loved by many Mendonesians who know her, including artist Hilda Pertha. Hilda writes
of their relationship and her thoughts on Dorr's work: "Dorr Bothwell and I have been
friends ever since she first invited me to visit her studio in San Francisco in the winter
of 1953-54. When I entered the clear, lovely space, the first thing I noticed was a huge
oil painting on her easel and a great splash of vivid blues, glowing with a sense of
living water, sunlight and vigor.
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'Beaded Curtain'
Serigraph by Dorr Bothwell, 1976
I assumed, then, that Dorr was an abstract artist, but
later I discovered her versatility; she constantly re-evaluated her direction, always a
little ahead of her contemporaries. Part of this process created her early serigraphs. She
was one of the pioneers in this medium she mastered, for many years, expressing her
impressions throughout her many travels as well as themes at home here in Mendocino.
Because of here loving nature, Dorr's kindness to friends
and students (and animals), it is no surprise to find her generous gift here for
scholarships. She will be pleased to see the public's generous response as well."
Helen Reynolds, one of Mendocino's treasured serigraph
artists, loaned me a collaborative book written by Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Frey on the
interaction of positive and negative forces, or light and dark, entitled: Notan, The
Dark-Light Principle of Design. First published in 1968, the book will be on sale in
the Mendocino Art Center Gift Shop.
'Shrines and Altars'
Serigraph Dorr Bothwell 1983
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