Dorr Bothwell
Encyclopedia
Dorr Hodgson Bothwell was an American artist, designer, educator, and world-traveller. She was born in San Francisco, California. She began her art career at the California School of Fine Arts
in 1921, under the tutelage of Gottardo Piazzoni
and Rudolf Schaeffer.
. Separating from Hord, she moved to Los Angeles in 1934, joining the post-surrealist
group around Lorser Feitelson
and Helen Lundeberg
, and participating in the mural division of the Federal Arts Project, where she learned the art of screenprinting, which would become her favored graphic technique. She returned to San Francisco in 1942. She traveled to Paris in 1949/51, to Africa in 1966/67, to England, France and Holland in 1970, to Bali, Java and Sumatra in 1974, and to China and Japan in 1982/85.
, Museum of Modern Art
, the Whitney Museum of American Art
, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery
, Glasgow, Scotland.
, the Mendocino Art Center, the Parsons School of Design in New York, the Ansel Adams
Photography Workshops in Yosemite and the Victor School of Photography in Colorado.
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
in 1921, under the tutelage of Gottardo Piazzoni
Gottardo Piazzoni
Gottardo Fidele Piazzoni was a Swiss-born American landscape painter, muralist and sculptor of Italian heritage, a key member of the school of Northern California artists in the early 1900s....
and Rudolf Schaeffer.
Travels
Bothwell's travels began in 1928, after her father died. She spent 1928 and 1929 living and working in Samoa, then spent another two years in Europe before resettling in San Diego in 1932, where she married her childhood friend, sculptor Donal HordDonal Hord
Donal Hord , an American sculptor, was born Donald Horr in Prentice, Wisconsin. His parents divorced when he was about 6 years old; and around that time his mother changed his name, taking the second "d" from "Donald" and substituting it for the second "r" in "Horr", thus creating the name Donal...
. Separating from Hord, she moved to Los Angeles in 1934, joining the post-surrealist
Post-surrealism
Post-surrealism is a movement that arose in Southern California in 1934 when Helen Lundeberg and Lorser Feitelson wrote a manifesto explaining their desire to use art to convey the relationship between the perceptual and the conceptual....
group around Lorser Feitelson
Lorser Feitelson
Lorser Feitelson was born and raised in New York city but rose to prominence on the West Coast as one of the founding fathers of Southern California-based Hard Edge painting...
and Helen Lundeberg
Helen Lundeberg
Helen Lundeberg was an American Post-Surrealist, hard-edge painter.Lundeberg was born in Chicago. She married California artist Lorser Feitelson, her former teacher...
, and participating in the mural division of the Federal Arts Project, where she learned the art of screenprinting, which would become her favored graphic technique. She returned to San Francisco in 1942. She traveled to Paris in 1949/51, to Africa in 1966/67, to England, France and Holland in 1970, to Bali, Java and Sumatra in 1974, and to China and Japan in 1982/85.
Notan
In 1968, Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield wrote Notan - on the Interaction of Positive and Negative Spaces. It was first reissued in 1976, and the first Danish translation was published in 1977. In 1991 the book was republished by Dover Publications as Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design; it has been in print continuously since then.Honors & Collections
Bothwell received many honors in her lifetime, including an Abraham Rosenberg Fellowship, the 1979 San Francisco Women in the Arts Award and two Pollock-Krasner grants for 1998-2000. Her art is in the collections of museums throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery
Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery
The University of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery is the oldest public museum in Scotland. It is located in various buildings on the main campus of the University in the west end of Glasgow.-History:...
, Glasgow, Scotland.
Teaching
Dorr Bothwell taught at the San Francisco Art InstituteSan Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
, the Mendocino Art Center, the Parsons School of Design in New York, the Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
Photography Workshops in Yosemite and the Victor School of Photography in Colorado.
Sources
- Bothwell, Dorr. Dorr Bothwell's African Sketchbook. Monica Hannasch, editor. Arti Grafiche Ambrosini - Roma, 2000. Print.
- Bothwell, Dorr and Mayfield, Marlys. Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design. ISBN 048626856X. Dover Publications, 1991. Print.
- Bowers, Karen. "Dorr Bothwell: Original Prints from Three Decades", Arts & Entertainment Magazine, March/April 1999. Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, California. Print.
- "Dorr Bothwell", Zacha's Bay Window Gallery (2010) Accessed 4/15/2011.
- "Dorr Bothwell, 1902-2000: A chronology" (Toby C. Moss Gallery, 2005)
- "Dorr Bothwell: A Memorial Retrospective" (Toby C. Moss Gallery, 2001)
- "Dorr Bothwell: A Special Vision" (Toby C. Moss Gallery, 1999)
- "Dorr Bothwell: An Eye Towards Abstraction" (Toby C. Moss Gallery, 2004)
- "Dorr Bothwell Biography" (ArtScene, undated)
- Fort, Ilene Susan. "The Adventurers, the Eccentrics, and the Dreamers: Women Modernists of Southern California", Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945. Patricia Trenton, editor. ISBN 9780520202030. University of California Press, 1995. Pages 76, 80, 82, 86, 89, 95, 98. Print.
- Landauer, Susan. "Searching for Selfhood: Woman Artists of Northern California", Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945. Patricia Trenton, editor.ISBN 9780520202030. University of California Press, 1995. Pages 25, 32, 37, 38. Print.
- Oliver, Myrna. "Dorr Bothwell; Painter Lived Nomadic Life." Los Angeles Times, 21 September 2000: B-8. Print.
- Richard, Valliere T. "Dorr Bothwell: Edited Biography." Arts & Entertainment Magazine, March/April 1999. Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, California.
- Stevenson, Charles. "Local Artists on Avant Garde: Charles Stevenson talks about the onward march of culture and other things related to the avant garde." Arts & Entertainment Magazine, March 1981. Antonia Lamb, editor. Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, California. Pages 8, 9. Print.
Additional links
- "Archive of the Art of Dorr Bothwell"
- Dorr Bothwell Portfolio (ArtScene)
- Dorr Bothwell Gallery at the Mendocino Art Center
- Dorr Bothwell at Paramour Fine Arts
- NotanNotanis a Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark as they are placed next to the other in art and imagery.-Uses:This use of light and dark translates shape and form into flat shapes on a two-dimensional surface...