Artifact of the Month - Little Mendocino Watercolor

1976.7.1 - Gift of George and Chispa Olsen

Was Turtle Bay’s copy of Little Mendocino painted by Grace Hudson herself, or is it one of a number of copies executed by others? Let’s investigate.

Let’s go back in time. All the way back to August 2024.

Turtle Bay curators took an art courier trip to Ukiah, California to deliver a painting from Turtle Bay’s permanent collection to the Grace Hudson Museum. The painting is called Lassen Fire by Ray Strong (b.1905, d.2006) and Turtle Bay loaned it to Museum for their exhibition Earth Portraiture: Ray Strong’s Northern California Landscapes. After finishing the business of unloading the large painting and completing the paperwork, we received a wonderful tour of the museum and learned a great deal about the fascinating artist, Grace Carpenter Hudson (b.1865, d.1937). Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore the Sun House, but we still highly recommend a visit to the Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House in Ukiah.

Since Turtle Bay has a Grace Hudson painting in the Collection, we thought it would be a good opportunity to explore this fascinating Northern California artist further and share our newfound knowledge with guests. We got more than we bargained for. What we thought would be a simple biographical sketch of a fairly known artist turned into a titillating art history mystery. When we delved into the records for the painting, we came across correspondence between the then-Museum Director Carolyn Bond and Dr. Searles Boynton, a Grace Hudson biographer.

The Redding Museum and Art Center (one of Turtle Bay’s four predecessor organizations) had received a donation in 1976 that included a watercolor painting called Little Mendocino. The Redding Museum sought to have it appraised by Dr. Searles Boynton. At first he didn’t seem convinced that it was authentic, however, he had not yet viewed the piece and was only assessing based on a textual description. He says:

“The ‘signed’ Grace Hudson watercolor painting received by the Redding Museum has very little chance of being an authentic Hudson. During the past seven years that I have been researching and writing about the artist, I have had at least ten similar paintings come to my attention.

“The original “Little Mendocino” hangs in the Sloss Collection of the California Historical Society in San Francisco. It has a dimension of 36” x 26” and was the fifth painting numbered by Grace Hudson. A miniature of this same subject was completed later the same year, 1893, and so far this painting remains unidentified.

“One glance at the original and I’m certain you would have no difficulty in making your own appraisal of your painting. To my knowledge Grace Hudson never numbered or copyrighted a watercolor; however, she did do some. The subject of “Little Mendocino” and reproductions thereof are mentioned in my forthcoming book”.

Then, he sees the painting in person and says:

“I called Mr. Kendrick this afternoon and drove down and picked up the Hudson painting. There is definitely no question in my mind that the painting is an authentic Hudson. The media is watercolor as you mentioned but the perfection of the detail of the tears on the child’s cheeks and the accuracy of the reproduction of the rope which binds the infant leaves no doubt that Grace was handling the brushes.”

But, that’s not the end of the story. As we dove even deeper, we came across an amazing article by Grace Hudson Museum Registrar and Carpenter Family Historian, Karen Holmes, titled, “The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Grace Hudson’s Little Mendocino and Its Many Copies”, which was printed in the August 2013 edition of Maine Antique Digest and linked on the Grace Hudson Museum website and here. It is a fairly long (but witty, scholarly, and highly worthwhile!) read. Ms. Holmes beautifully outlines Grace’s personal, family, and professional history, as well as the background and controversy behind the many reproductions of Little Mendocino.

So, was Turtle Bay’s Little Mendocino painted by Grace Hudson herself? We invite you to read Ms. Holmes’ article, come to the Museum to see the Artifact of the Month in person, and decide for yourself. “The Game is Afoot”, as another famous Holmes would say.

Amanda Kramp - Assistant Curator of Collections and Exhibits