Rendering Life
Line by Line
o commemorate 20 years in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Nancy Dodds is hosting a celebratory exhibition at her
eponymous gallery, featuring the late San Francisco artist Beth Van Hoesen (1926-2010). The opening
reception takes place September 6 from 5-7pm, and the exhibit highlights Van Hoesen's prints, drawings, and
watercolors, which have been a mainstay at the gallery since its earliest inception.
Van Hoesen was a scholar of the observable world who was captivated as much by the seemingly insignificant as by
the remarkable. With an unerring hand and connoisseur's eye, she made the most ordinary everyday objects luminous.
Using fluid, elegant lines, Van Hoesen drew everything—from the human face and body at every age and in every per-
mutation—to mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects. She depicted flowers, fruit, and vegetables; land forms and city build-
ings; and even boxes of candy and balls of yarn. Van Hoesen excelled not only at rendering the intricate surface nuances
of an owl feather or a poppy petal, but with an almost supernatural sensibility, captured the singular characteristics and
intrinsic individuality of her animal subjects.
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C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R / F A L L 2 0 1 4 205
"Pike (State II)," 1988, aquatint and etching with watercolor.
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