The papers of California-based sculptor Adaline Dutton Kent measure 1.0 linear feet and date from 1937 to 1958. The collection focuses on the latter half of Kent's professional career documented through biographical materials, scattered correspondence, two notebooks, personal business records, photographs, printed material, four sketchbooks and loose sketches, and writings and notes. Also found is a project file regarding a design for an opera with sketches, a script, and printed material, and printed material on painter Charles Howard, who was Kent's brother-in-law.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of California-based sculptor Adaline Dutton Kent measure 1.0 linear feet and date from 1937 to 1958. The collection focuses on the latter half of Kent's professional career documented through biographical materials, scattered correspondence, two notebooks, personal business records, photographs, printed material, four sketchbooks and loose sketches, and writings and notes. Also found is a project file regarding a design for an opera with sketches, a script, and printed material, and printed material on painter Charles Howard, who was Kent's brother-in-law.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection the papers are arranged as one series.
Biographical / Historical:
Adaline Kent (1900-1957) was a sculptor in San Francisco, California who began her career creating figure-based sculpture and whose later works were inspired by nature and the landscape of California. Kent, who was married to artist Robert Boardman Howard, died in 1957 in a car accident along the Pacific Coast Highway.
Provenance:
Robert Boardman Howard, Kent's widower, donated the papers to the Archives of American Art in 1974.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
United States -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1945 -- California -- San Francisco
United States -- Social conditions -- 1933-1945 -- California -- San Francisco
Date:
1936-1937
Scope and Contents:
Twenty volumes of the publication, CALIFORNIA ART RESEARCH, containing monographs on artists whose principal residence was San Francisco.
REEL NDA/Cal 1: Artists include Robert Aitken, Arthur Atkins, Albert Bierstadt, Ray Boynton, Anne Bremer, Henry J. Breuer, Giuseppe Cadenasso, Emil Carlsen, M. Earl Cummings, Rinaldo Cuneo, Charles Dickman, Maynard Dixon, Charles Grant, Armin Hansen, H. W. Hansen, Thomas Hill, Christian Jorgensen, Amedee Joullin, William Keith, Constance Macky, Xavier Martinez, Arthur Mathews, Francis McComas, Arthur C. Nahl, Charles C. Nahl, Hugo W. A. Nahl, Perham W. Nahl, Virgil T. Nahl, Ernest Peixotto, Charles R. Peters, Gottardo Piazzoni, Horatio Nelson Poole, Arthur Putnam, Joseph Raphael, Mary C. Richardson, Julian Rix, Charles D. Robinson, Toby Rosenthal, Will Sparks,Jules Tavernier, Douglas Tilden, Domenico Tojetti, Frank Van Sloun, Thaddeus Welch, Virgil Williams, Evelyn A. Withrow, and Theodore Wores.
REEL NDA/Cal 2: Artists include Rowena M. Abdy, Gertrude Albright, Hermann O. Albright, Maxine Albro, Victor Arnautoff, Matthew R. Barne s, Frank Bergman, Jane Berlandina, Ray Bethers, Beniamino Bufano, Margaret Bruton, Chee Chin, Ruth Cravath, Helen Forbes, Euphemia C. Fortune, William Gaw, Edith Hamlin, William Hesthal, Clark Hobart, Charles Howard, John G. Howard, John L. Howard, Robert Boardman Howard, Adaline Kent, Dong Kingman, Lucien Labaudt, Spencer Mackey, Jo Mora, Jose Moya del Pino, Chiura Obata, Otis Oldfield, Julius Pommer, George B. Post, Dorothy W. Puccinelli, Raimondo Puccinelli, Lee F. Randolph, Andree Rexroth, Matteo Sandona, Geneve R. Sargeant, Sergey J. Scherbakoff,Jacques Schnier, Yoshida Sekido, Joseph M. Sheridan,Ralph Stackpole, and Bernard Zakheim.
Biographical / Historical:
Publication of the Works Progress Administration; San Francisco, Calif. Sponsored by Dr. Walter Heil of the M.H. de Young Museum. Was originally a joint project of the WPA-Statistical projects division and the WPA-Federal Art Project in order to disseminate information about artists and art in the San Francisco region.
Publication, Distribution, Etc. (Imprint):
San Francisco, WPA Project 2874, 1936-1937.
Provenance:
Provenance unknown.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Artists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
New Deal, 1933-1939 -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Federal aid to the arts -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Federal aid to the public welfare -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Art and state -- California -- San Francisco Search this
United States -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1945 -- California
United States -- Social conditions -- 1933-1945 -- California
Date:
[ca. 1940]
Scope and Contents:
Photographs of Howard and his paintings and a critique; and analysis by Sidney Peterson.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; Northern California. Painted for the Federal Art Project in California.
Provenance:
The lender, Lewis Ferbrache, was an administrator of the Oakland Museum of Art and collected materials relating to federally funded art projects for AAA during its New Deal and the Arts project.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
The papers of California painter, printmaker, and art instructor Dorr Bothwell date from 1900-2006, and measure 10.6 linear feet and 1.72 GB. Found within the papers are biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, notes and writings, five diaries, art work and 19 sketchbooks, three scrapbooks, printed material, and print and digital photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of California painter, printmaker, and art instructor Dorr Bothwell date from 1900-2006, and measure 10.6 linear feet and 1.72 GB. Found within the papers are biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, notes and writings, five diaries, art work and 19 sketchbooks, three scrapbooks, printed material, and print and digital photographs.
Correspondence consists of letters exchanged between Bothwell and her colleagues and friends discussing their art-related activities, travel, and birthday greetings. There are scattered letters from Ansel and Virginia Adams, Etel Adnan, Benjamin Chinn, Claire Falkenstein, and Emmy Lou Packard.
Personal business records include teaching contracts, contracts and royalty statements for the publication of Bothwell's book Notan, insurance records, income tax records, records concerning a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, estate records, card files, lists of art work, price lists, exhibition entry cards, receipts for the sale of art work, travel receipts, medical receipts, and consignment/sales records.
Notes and writings include three diaries, two travel journals, guest books, miscellaneous lists, schedules of classes for various organizations and art schools including the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop, typescripts of lecture notes, and miscellaneous notes. There are also scattered writings by Bothwell and others.
Seventeen sketchbooks, including several completed during Bothwell's travels, and one dated 1942 illustrated with daily drawings of her activities while preparing for World War II, are found within the papers. There are also miscellaneous drawings, collages, a serigraph It's Time for a Change, an etching by Martha Jackson, and a drawing by Charles Howard.
Three scrapbooks contain clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, programs, and photographs of art work. Scrapbook 3 contains materials concerning spiritualism and mysticism. Additional printed material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, press releases, brochures for art classes, the sale of art work, travel, and camera equipment, reproductions of art work, picture postcards, programs, books, and miscellaneous commercial business cards.
Photographs are of Bothwell, her mother and brother, her studio/residences, miscellaneous friends and colleagues including her former husband, sculptor Donal Hord, miscellaneous events, and art classes conducted by Bothwell. There are also photographs of art work by Bothwell and others, as well as numerous photographs and slides of travel various forms in nature that Bothwell would incorporate into her art work.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1939-2001 (Box 1, 11, 13, 15; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1942-2002 (Box 1-3, 13; 2.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1925-2006 (Box 3-4; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Notes and Writings, 1949-1998 (Box 4, 11, 14, 15; 0.8 linear feet.)
Series 5: Art Work, 1920-1994 (Box 4-5, 11, 13, 16, 17; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1926-1979 (Box 5, 11, 12; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1923-2000 (Box 5-7, 12, 13; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1900-2001 (Box 7-9, 10; 2.4 linear feet, ER01-ER04; 1.72 GB)
Biographical Note:
Dorr Bothwell (1902-2000) worked primarily in California as a painter, printmaker, and art instructor.
Doris Bothwell was born on May 3, 1902 in San Francisco, and later changed her first name to Dorr in order to more easily enter the art business. Bothwell began her art studies in 1916 with her parents' friend Anna Valentien, a student of Rodin. Between 1921 and 1922, she studied at the California School of Fine Art, and continued her studies at the University of Oregon at Eugene. After attending the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in 1924, she established her own studio in San Francisco from 1924 to 1927. Also during this time Bothwell, with eight other artists opened the Modern Gallery on Montgomery Street, mounting her first solo exhibition there in 1927.
Between 1928 and 1929, Bothwell traveled to American Samoa, where she created paintings and drawings, and documented tapa (barkcloth) drawings for the Bishop Museum of Honolulu. She then spent a year of study in Europe, returning to San Diego, California in 1931 and marrying sculptor Donal Hord. Four years later, they divorced and she moved to Los Angeles where she worked for the pottery manufacturer Gladding McBean, joined the post-surrealist group around Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg and opened the Bothwell-Cooke Gallery.
Between 1936 and 1939, Bothwell worked in the mural division of the Federal Arts Project of Los Angeles, and learned the art of serigraph printing. She designed dioramas and mechanized exhibitions for the Los Angeles County Museum. In 1940 she also created murals in the Manning Coffee Restaurant in San Francisco.
After teaching color and design at the California School of Fine Art in San Francisco from 1944 to 1948, Bothwell was awarded the Abraham Rosenberg Traveling Scholarship that financed study in Paris from 1949 to the fall of 1951. In 1952 she taught textile design for mass production at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
Returning to San Francisco, Bothwell taught again at the California School of Fine Art from 1953 to 1958, and at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1959 to 1960. From 1960 to 1961 she took a sabbatical in England and France, creating paintings for an exhibition. In 1962 she was asked to teach at the new Mendocino Art Center and she taught there until 1983. She was also asked by Ansel Adams to teach design and composition for photographers at his Yosemite Workshop summer sessions, which she did from 1964 to 1977.
From 1966 to 1967, Bothwell documented indigo dying techniques, strip weaving, and pottery in Western Nigeria and Tunisia. In 1968, she published her book, co-authored with Marlys Frey, NOTAN The Principle of Dark-Light Design. The book was reissued in 1991. Bothwell continued her travels from 1970 to 1971, when she studied 12th century enamels in England, France, and Holland, and conducted a symposium, "Notan Design," for the London Educational Authority. In 1974, she traveled to Bali, Java, and Sumatra, making a slide documentary on batik, woodcarving, and folk design.
In 1977 Bothwell moved to Joshua Tree, California, from Mendocino in Northern California, but moved back and forth between the two studio/residences until 1992 when she moved to her last residence on the desert at Apache Junction, Arizona. From 1979 to 1980, she taught composition at the Victor School of Photography in Colorado and a design course at the Women's Art Guild in Kauai, Hawaii. Following a tour of China with a watercolor artists' group in 1982, Bothwell conducted workshops at the Mendocino Art Center. In 1985, she traveled to Japan.
Dorr Bothwell died on September 24, 2000 in Fort Bragg, California.
Provenance:
The Dorr Bothwell papers were donated in 1978 by the artist, and in 2002, 2009, and 2012 by the Dorr Bothwell Trust.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.