About Us

For more than twenty years, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery has focused on California’s historic art—from the late 19th century into the 20th century.

From California’s earliest days, artists came west to paint its extraordinary and diverse landscape: majestic mountains, spacious deserts, fertile valleys, bustling cities, and a long, rugged coastline. As California grew and art movements changed, its artists changed with it. California Scene Painting and the California Style Watercolor movement brought fresh and exciting ways of expressing the visual character and vitality of the Golden State. The movie industry brought another wave of artists to California, adding yet another dimension to what we call California art.

We are fascinated by all of it.

Linda and Dan

Linda and Dan are delighted to call Bodega Bay home. Although Bodega Bay remains a small fishing village as well as a popular tourist destination, the gallery’s visitors and clients come from all over California, as well as from the Midwest, the East Coast, and countries around the world.

We especially enjoy meeting people who are discovering Bodega Bay for the first time. When visitors come through our door, we’re happy to share more than the art. We enjoy helping them discover the village itself, its galleries, beaches, sights, activities, restaurants, and all the other pleasures that make Bodega Bay such a special place.

Linda Sorensen

Linda began as a painter and commercial artist, but in those early years she discovered that opportunities for women in the arts—and in many other professions—were still limited. After high school in Summit, New Jersey, and Elmhurst, Illinois, she attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating in 1967 with a B.S. in Education and a major in English.

Her teaching credential did not qualify her to teach in California, and with jobs scarce, she found work as a secretary at the University of California at Berkeley. Times were changing, however, and Linda went on to attend Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, at a time when women were finally entering the legal profession in significant numbers.

She went on to build a successful career of more than thirty years specializing in business bankruptcy law in San Francisco.

After retiring from the law, Linda returned to painting. Today, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery serves not only as our gallery, but also as her primary studio. She divides her time between painting and welcoming visitors to the gallery.

Linda’s currently available paintings can be viewed at LindaSorensenPaintings.com.

Dan Rohlfing

Dan was born in Indiana and raised in Illinois. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and later a Lutheran seminary in St. Louis. After graduation, he served briefly as a parish pastor but soon discovered that he preferred working with a wider circle of people. That realization led him into public education.

For twenty years, Dan taught the U.S. Constitution and introduced Shakespeare to eighth-grade students in El Sobrante, California. He found the real thrill of teaching in those electric moments when a student’s eyes brightened and the light bulb suddenly went on.

Retirement from the classroom didn’t end the teaching. It simply gave him a new classroom.

For most of the past twenty years, Dan has been busy with Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, researching, writing, and learning about California art. Each month he has published an online newsletter exploring the artists, paintings, and stories that have shaped California’s art history. Researching those articles has added up to an education of its own.

Today, the gallery is Dan’s new classroom—a place where he continues to learn, and, hopefully, to share what he has learned with others.

You can find his Newsletter articles, past and present, on the Gallery Archive page.