Coleman Valley Road

Wilder Mayo Bentley

A dove gray sky illuminates the hills of west Sonoma County’s beloved Coleman Valley Road, a stretch of bumpy asphalt that winds through old farmland and coastal prairie on its way to Highway 1 and the Pacific Ocean. Wilder Mayo Bentley lived not far from this road and his watercolors, lithographs, and woodcuts often pay tribute to the small corner of Northern California still relatively unscatched by development, and still rich with history and a beauty unique to its area.

In the winter, rains encourage tender green shoots to sprout in the crevasses formed by ever-shifting earth and down along the paths trod by cattle and deer. Soon, these hillsides transform from the ash-blonde slopes wrought by summer sun into a patchwork quilt of greens, browns, and the bone-white of spent prairie grasses that especially glow under the cover of low lying clouds. In “Coleman Valley Road,” Bentley has captured the essence of the county’s storied coast.