Lucille D. Bainbridge

Lucille D. Bainbridge (born Lucille Duff, Middletown, Connecticut, 1924) is an American artist, whose focus is the American West.
Biography
Bainbridge began painting at the age of 18 after her father gave her a set of oil paints and a portable easel. Following this, her interest in art steadily increased. After one year of fashion illustration courses, she quit her job and became a full-time day student at the School of Practical Arts in Boston. Her first oil painting was of an old apple tree in the back yard of their house. Her pursuit of art was interrupted during World War II, but after resettling in California with her husband and two young children she resumed sketching and painting. In 1954 the family moved to Golden, Colorado and while the children were in school, Bainbridge could begin to pursue her art seriously. With a friend, Hope Merrin, she took many trips into the mountains to do pastel sketches of the scenery, old mines and mining towns. Her skill developed rapidly. In 1960, they left Golden and manufactured wooden toys in Winthrop, Washington for three years. Bainbridge began to sell pastel sketches and paintings and also traded them for flights in the northern Cascades. She also began to perfect her finely detailed technique for oil painting on gessoed masonite. Some of her first exceptional paintings were done during this period, including the Methow Valley.
A move to Sacramento enabled her to have her first dedicated studio, and she developed the habit of painting several hours a day that she would continue for almost 30 years. With neighbor and friend Madeline Roach she explored the Sacramento area for sketching and painting. In Sacramento she began to exhibit and have regular sales at galleries. A new position at Oregon State University for her husband led Lu to Corvallis and a very productive period of painting. Car camping and backpacking trips along the south coast and the mountains of eastern Oregon provided further inspiration. Lu’s strongest ocean paintings are from this period, as are numerous paintings of Oregon barns. Her growing talent can be seen in the painting Sunset at the Refuge. Her work was displayed and sold at the Corvallis Arts Center and recently featured in the Center’s 50th anniversary.
In 1973 she and her husband retired to a small ranchette in Cortez, Colorado selected for the view of Sleeping Ute Mountain to the west, Mesa Verde to the south, and the La Plata range to the northeast. Together they tore down the dilapidated old ranch house, recycled the materials and built a snug new home. They enjoyed the quiet and simple beauty of Cortez and the high and low mountains and canyon lands that provided the inspiration for many of her paintings from this period. She exhibited and sold her paintings in Cortez. In July 1979 her work was featured in Southwest Art.
In 1988, she experienced a health setback and could no longer tolerate turpentine fumes and reluctantly gave up painting, concentrating on reading, bird watching, and botanizing in SW Colorado and Utah). Her paintings can be seen at the library and the Anasazi visitor center near Dolores, Colorado, the Corvallis art center and in the book Lucille D. Bainbridge, Paintings of the American West. Her work is collected by a range of art enthusiasts—but is perhaps most loved by the ranchers and landowners who found her paintings captured their place in time.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu