Methodist Church in Old Bodie Ghost Town - California - Watercolor on Paper by Rachel Bentley

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Methodist Church in Bodie California - Watercolor on Paper

Delightful watercolor by California artist Rachel Bentley (American, 1894-1991). The scene … Read more Methodist Church in Bodie California - Watercolor on Paper

Delightful watercolor by California artist Rachel Bentley (American, 1894-1991). The scene depicts the Methodist Church in Bodie, California, which was built in 1882. Bodie State Historic Park is a genuine California gold-mining ghost town. The church sits at the bottom of the hill, with other structures slightly elevated in the background. The sky is bright blue with puffy clouds. The piece is bright and fully saturated, demonstrating Bentley's mastery of the medium.

Frame size: 15.75"H x 19.75"W
Image size: 9.5"H x 13.5"W

Rachel Bentley (American, 1894-1991) was born in Stoughton, Wisconsin, but spent the majority of her life in California. She learned the art of watercolor at the Palo Alto Arts Club and from studying with Edward Farmer, Ralph Ledesma, and William Montel. Bentley exhibited throughout California, and was a member of the Allied Arts Guild of Menlo Park.

Bentley gained widespread recognition as a watercolor artist in 1954 when 100 of her one-and two-room country schoolhouses were exhibited at the California State Fair. Earlier that year, Rachel came up with the idea of making a collection of these "little halls of learning.” At that time, little red schoolhouses were rapidly disappearing from the American landscape--and for the first time, the National Park Service was asked to declare a school (in Wakefield, New Hampshire) a registered national historic landmark. Her unique collection has been displayed countless times since in galleries, libraries, universities, by historical societies and museums, and at art festivals. Many of the schools she captured by paintbrush are now gone.

Around 1957, Rachel was commissioned to paint over 50 views of early Menlo Park and Atherton. For this project, she worked from photographs. Bay Area historian Susan Gale presented 25 of the watercolor paintings to the City of Menlo Park to form a permanent exhibit in the civic center. They also have appeared in numerous publications and been used for lectures on local history. Under the Oaks: Two Hundred Years in Atherton, a book written in 2009 by Pamela Guillard and Nancy Lund, features several of them, including Linden Towers, the "Wedding Cake" mansion of silver baron James C. Flood.

From 1956 to 1961, assignments from the Ford Times travel magazine sent Rachel to the mining towns of California and Nevada. Her paintings of ruins left behind from the Gold Rush and Comstock Lode were featured in a traveling art exhibit sponsored by Ford that went around the world and became a permanent piece of the Ford Times Collection of American Art.

In 1991, Rachel's family donated over 80 of her original schoolhouse watercolors to the San Mateo County Office of Education in Redwood City, where the paintings continue to be displayed throughout the building. Twenty-four schoolhouses are on public exhibit in the Rachel Bentley Gallery there. Her painting of the Carmel Mission (San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo Mission) and two schoolhouses were donated to the Oakland Museum for its California Collection. See less