Mockel Painting

Above, the Mockel acrylic painting. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

A few days ago, I was dusting around the house when I came to a small acrylic painting (pictured above) of a desert smoketree from the Gallery of Henry R. Mockel.

I never took a real look at the painting or the backside of it before, even though it has been in the family for decades (at least since the 1960s). That got me curious about the artist.

My grandmother lived in Twentynine Palms for a time until health issues caught up with her. Henry and his wife Beverly published books on desert flora and opened the gallery in Twentynine Palms. I am guessing that my grandmother bought the painting there while she lived in the California desert town. 

According to ArtPlantae Today:

Impressed with what she saw during a visit to California to attend a nursing conference, Beverly Mockel returned to Cooperstown, New York to talk her husband, artist Henry R. Mockel, into moving to the Golden State. When she succeeded at this task, they moved to the town of Calico in the Mojave Desert in 1958. While residents of Calico, the Mockel’s often took trips to Joshua Tree National Park to see the wildflowers. They made frequent stops so Henry could paint flowers along the way. Eventually they decided they should move closer to the flowers, so they moved themselves and their 47-foot house trailer to Twentynine Palms in 1961. After settling into their new home, Henry and Beverly opened the Pioneer Art Gallery in what is now the Historic Plaza. One can only imagine that this new exciting desert lifestyle was quite a change for Henry, a former bookbinder, farmer and cattle rancher.

The painting is signed by Beverly. She may have painted it herself as the Desert Sun described her as an artist along with her husband Henry:

Henry and Beverly were trained artists and philosophers from New York who landed in the remote desert. Here they turned their efforts to creating illustrated books by hand with old presses at their studio.

I now know a little more about those behind the painting, which hangs in my living room next to the bay windows on the west side.