Bothwell (Dorr) papers, 1960-1966

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Summary

Title:

Dorr Bothwell papers

Dates:

1960-1966

Creators:

Bothwell, Dorr (1902-2000)

Abstract:

The Dorr Bothwell papers include black-and-white photographic prints, negatives, and contact sheets that document Bothwell's work on the concept of notan – an Eastern principle of art and design that focuses on the interplay between positive and negative space. Also included are a paste-up for a book Bothwell co-authored with Marlys (Frey) Mayfield titled Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design, and a small diary containing sketches from her travels around the world.

Extent:

2.46 Linear Feet (4 boxes)

Language:

Collection material is in English.

Preferred citation:

Dorr Bothwell papers, 1960-1966, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2024.M.2.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/archives2024m2

Background

Scope and content:

The Dorr Bothwell papers include black-and-white photographic prints, negatives, and contact sheets that primarily feature Bothwell's repetition of patterns and motifs, as well as people and places. Some images also depict Bothwell's metalwork and woodwork. The prints document Bothwell's work on the concept of notan – an Eastern principle of art and design that focuses on the interplay between positive and negative space. Also included is a paste-up for a book Bothwell co-authored with Marlys (Frey) Mayfield titled Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design, as well as a small diary which includes drawings of various scenes and people from her travels around the world.

Biographical / historical:

Dorr Bothwell, born Dorothy Hodgson Bothwell on May 3, 1902, was an American artist, designer, educator, and avid traveler. Around 1925, she reportedly changed her name to Dorr to avoid gender discrimination in the art world.

As a young child, Bothwell aspired to be an artist. She studied dance as a teenager, and was a student at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) from 1921 to 1923. She briefly enrolled at the University of Oregon in Eugene in 1922, then returned to San Francisco in 1924 to study under Rudolph Schaeffer and Gottardo Piazzoni. From 1924 to 1927, she operated the Modern Gallery at 718 Montgomery Street in San Francisco with nine other artists: Rosalie Maus, Parker Hall, Ward Montague, Yun Gee, Julius Pommer, Francis Dunham, Don Works, Marian Thrace, and Ruth Cravath.

Bothwell was fascinated with non-Western cultures, seeking to understand their principles of design, which informed her own artistic practice. Inspired by Robert J. Flaherty's 1926 film Moana, which documented the lives of Polynesians in Samoa, Bothwell set sail for Pago Pago in 1928. She remained there for several years, studying the Samoan culture and language and creating blockprints, oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings of traditional tapa (bark cloth) designs. When colonial authorities tried to deport Bothwell, the local chief adopted her as his daughter and gave her the honorific Samoan name "Soaifetu." She underwent a painful initiation ceremony, receiving elaborate tattoos on both legs, to signify her acceptance as a full Samoan.

In 1930, using income earned from the works she created in Samoa, Bothwell traveled to England, France, and Germany for a year. She was briefly married to sculptor Donal Hord before she moved to San Diego, and then to Los Angeles in 1934. In 1935, Bothwell opened Bothwell Cooke Gallery and worked as a ceramic designer for Gladding McBean. From 1936 to 1939, she was part of the Los Angeles Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project, where she designed dioramas for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and painted a mural for the Manning Coffee Cafe in San Francisco. During this time, Bothwell immersed herself in the Post-surrealism scene that had emerged in Southern California, and became close to its founding artists Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg, who championed art as a means to communicate the relationship between the perceptual and the conceptual. She learned screen printing in 1943 when museums and galleries questioned the medium's viability as fine art. It was also around this time that Bothwell's style transitioned from representational surrealism to Abstract Expressionism.

Bothwell continued to teach and travel in the latter part of her life. After receiving the Abraham Rosenberg Traveling Scholarship, she traveled to Paris in 1949, staying there through 1951. Bothwell taught at the California School of Fine Arts (from 1944 to 1948 and again from 1953 to 1958), the Parsons School of Design in New York (1952 to 1953), and the San Francisco Art Institute (1959 to 1960), the Mendocino Art Center (1962 to 1990s), and the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop summer sessions (1964 to 1977). This was followed by a year-long sabbatical to England and France from 1960 to 1961.

From 1966 to 1967, Bothwell traveled in Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, and Tunisia, where she documented her travels. In 1968, she co-authored the book Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design with author and educator Marlys (Frey) Mayfield. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bothwell visited England, France, and Holland, as well as Bali, Java, and Sumatra to document craft techniques. In 1977, she purchased a home in Joshua Tree, California, splitting time between there and her residence in Mendocino. Bothwell taught at the Victor School of Photography in Colorado in 1979, and also taught a course in design in Kauai, Hawaii. She toured China and Japan at the age of 83. In 1992, she moved to her final residence in Apache Junction, Arizona.

Bothwell's paintings and collages have been exhibited internationally, including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Tobey C. Moss Gallery in Los Angeles, where the artist was represented; the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Bothwell was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Abraham Rosenberg Fellowship in 1949, the San Francisco Women in the Arts Award in 1979, and two Pollock-Krasner Awards in 1998 and 2000.

Dorr Bothwell died September 24, 2000, in Fort Bragg, California.

Sources consulted:

The British Museum. "Dorr Bothwell." Accessed June 6, 2024. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG20385.

Calabi Gallery. "Dorr Bothwell." Accessed August 2, 2024. https://calabigallery.com/artists/dorr-bothwell/.

Oliver, Myrna. "Dorr Bothwell: Painter Lived a Nomadic Life." The Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2000, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-sep-28-me-27856-story.html.

Quinn, Kelly. "I'll Pretend That I Am Going to 'Art School': Dorr Bothwell in Samoa, 1928-1929." Archives of American Art Journal 52, no. 1/2 (2013): 70–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43155569.

Yungee. "The Modern Gallery: 1926-1927." Accessed August 14, 2024. https://yungee.com/the-modern-gallery.

Zacha's Bay Window Gallery. "Dorr Bothwell (1902-2000)." Accessed June 6, 2024. https://www.williamzacha.com/artists/dorr-bothwell/about-dorr-bothwell/.

Zacha's Bay Window Gallery. Dorr Bothwell: Straws in the Wind: An Artist's Life as told to Bruce Levene. Accessed August 2, 2024. https://www.williamzacha.com/artists/dorr-bothwell/straws-complete/.

Acquisition information:

Gift of Jamal Hammadi Trust. Acquired in 2024.

Custodial history:

Jamal Hammadi purchased Bothwell's home in Joshua Tree in the early 2000s, where he later (or at which time) found the materials in this collection. Hammadi initially gave Bothwell's diary to his mother, but eventually repossessed it after his mother's passing. From September 5, 2011 to December 7, 2014, he wrote notes to his mother on multiple pages throughout Bothwell's diary; these notes do not obscure Bothwell's notes and drawings.

Processing information:

Processed in 2024 by Jen Rasmussen under the supervision of Sarah Mackenzie Wade.

Arrangement:

The archive is arranged by format.

Physical location:

Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy.

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Abstract expressionism
Art, American -- 20th century
Art, American -- California -- 20th century
Symbolism (Art movement)
Women artists -- United States -- 20th century
Black-and-white negatives -- 20th century
Contact sheets -- 20th century
Diaries -- 20th century
Gelatin silver negatives
Gelatin silver prints -- 20th century
Photographs, Original
Sketchbooks

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:: Jen Rasmussen
Date Encoded:: This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-10-02 08:08:19 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:: Open for use by qualified researchers.
Terms of access:: Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.