FEARLESS, The Adventurous Heart of Dorr Bothwell

Fearless, The Adventurous Heart of Dorr Bothwell
Risk and Reward in the 20th Century

Dorr Bothwell 1902 -2000

Dorr Bothwell, artist, designer, educator, and world traveler, was courageous at heart. Unapologetic in prioritizing her artwork, unwavering in her commitment and fidelity to that purpose, Bothwell allowed herself full person-hood during an era when women had no vote, literally in politics and figuratively at home. She viewed her career as a true vocation, a calling, and placed it above her own desire for traditional relationships,
comfort, or safety.

Bothwell’s adventure began in 1928 when she was just 26 years old and traveled alone to Samoa, spending two years living among the Samoan people, learning their language, songs, dances, and traditional siapo (Samoan tapa or barkcloth) design and methods of production. During this period, she was adopted by her Samoan hosts, Sotoa, the chief of the territory, and his wife, a process that included consenting to extensive, painful traditional tattoos, giving her Samoan citizenship, a solution that prevented her deportation by the United States colonial authorities. She loved her new family, and the people of Samoa, but felt that her art career required that she return stateside.

Soon after her return, artwork from Bothwell's time in Samoa was shown in two successful solo exhibits, at the San Diego Fine Arts Museum (1929), and at the Beaux Arts Gallery in San Francisco (1930), which allowed her to travel in Europe. Over Bothwell’s lifetime she would continue this pattern of deep exploration abroad, drawing, painting, photographing, learning the language, studying local textiles, and absorbing the culture. Some of the places Bothwell explored, sometimes for years at a time, sometimes returning, include American Samoa, France, England, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Tunisia, Bali, Java, Sumatra, China, Japan, and Mexico.

Bothwell had the unshakable faith that lives in the hearts of those with a clear and elevated purpose. Throughout her life she followed her artistic instincts across the globe, in a time when travel provided true adventure and a good measure of discomfort. It was with this combination of faith and focus that Dorr Bothwell became fearless.

Bothwell received many honors in her lifetime, including an Abraham Rosenberg Fellowship for work abroad, the San Francisco Women in the Arts Award, and two Pollock-Krasner grants. Her artwork is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, SF MoMA, the de Young Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, University California Irvine, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland.

Bothwell’s 1928 & 1929 diaries documenting her time in American Samoa are held in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian.
https://womenshistory.si.edu/object/dorr-bothwell-diary:AAADCD_item_16517

Learn more about Dorr Bothwell on the website of the Mendocino Heritage Artists:
https://www.williamzacha.com/artists/dorr-bothwell/about-dorr-bothwell/

Bothwell’s story can be read in her own words in Dorr Bothwell: Straws in the Wind: An Artist's Life as told to Bruce Levene :

https://www.williamzacha.com/artists/dorr-bothwell/straws-complete/

This online exhibition was designed and produced in cooperation with the Dorr Bothwell Trust.