Dennis Miller Bunker
Encyclopedia
Dennis Miller Bunker was an American
painter
and innovator of American Impressionism
. His mature works include both brightly colored landscape paintings
and dark, finely drawn portrait
s and figures
. One of the major American painters of the late 19th century, and a friend of many prominent artists of the era, Bunker died from meningitis
at the age of 29.
to Matthew Bunker, the secretary-treasurer of the Union Ferry Company, and his wife, Mary Anne Eytinge Bunker. In 1876 he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York
and the National Academy of Design
. By 1880 he was participating in the annual exhibitions of the National Academy
, the American Watercolor Society
, and the Brooklyn
Art Association.
In 1881 Bunker exhibited a watercolor at the Boston Art Club
. He subsequently exhibited both oil paintings and watercolors at the Club in 1882 and 1883. In 1886, the American printmaker Louis Prang
exhibited two of Bunker's works from his own collection at the Club.
In 1882 Bunker left New York to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
in Paris
, most notably with Jean-Léon Gérôme
. In the spring of 1883, accompanied by fellow students Charles A. Platt
and Kenneth R. Cranford, Bunker left Paris to travel through the French countryside and the coast of Normandy
, returning to continue his studies in mid-October. The following year the three artists summered and painted in Brittany
. By year's end Bunker had returned to New York City.
In 1885 Bunker was elected to the Society of American Artists
. In October of that year, at the recommendation of James Carroll Beckwith
, he moved to Boston
to teach at the Cowles Art School, where he was the chief instructor of figure and cast drawing, artistic anatomy, and composition. He lived and taught in the art school building. Concurrently Bunker was given his first solo exhibition, at Noyes and Blakeslee Gallery in Boston. Despite these successes, Bunker was homesick for France
, and wrote of feeling "supremely ridiculous" in "this atmosphere of wealth and respectability". While meager finances prevented him from staying in Boston during the summer, let alone traveling to Europe
, Bunker did accept an invitation from Abbott Handerson Thayer
to join him and paint in South Woodstock, Connecticut
in 1886. In that year he also met Isabella Stewart Gardner
, who would prove to be a valuable friend and patron.
Bunker painted portraits during the winter of 1887, and spent the summer in Newburyport, Massachusetts
with artist friends; including Henry Oliver Walker
. In November he met John Singer Sargent
in Boston, during the latter's first working trip to America. In 1888 Bunker undertook a number of portrait commissions of important Bostonians, including members of the Gardner family, Samuel Endicott Peabody, and J. Montgomery Sears. Bunker spent the summer in England
, where he joined Sargent and his family in Calcot, painting during the day and playing tennis in the evening.
During the spring of 1889 Bunker resigned from the Cowles Art School. At a reception he met Eleanor Hardy, whom he would marry the following year. In the summer Bunker stayed at a boarding house in Medfield, Massachusetts
, and enjoyed his most productive season of painting. In the fall he returned to New York, writing daily to Hardy in Boston. By this time, Bunker's circle of friends included not only Sargent, Gardner, and Platt, but Thomas Wilmer Dewing, William Merritt Chase
, Stanford White
, William Dean Howells
, Charles Martin Loeffler
, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens
, as well.
In 1890 Bunker first exhibited his impressionist landscapes at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. He received an offer to teach at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, and planned to take over William Merritt Chase's class in Brooklyn that winter. In June he visited the art colony
at Cornish, New Hampshire
, and in July returned to paint further at Medfield. On October 2 Bunker married Eleanor Hardy in Boston. The Cornish Colony Artist, Henry Oliver Walker, was Best Man at Bunker's wedding. Bunker had been Walker's Best Man at Walker's wedding the previous year. The couple then moved to New York. Returning to Boston to celebrate Christmas with the Hardy family, Bunker fell ill. On December 28 he died of heart failure, probably caused by cerebro-spinal meningitis. Platt and other friends organized a memorial exhibition at the St. Botolph Club, held in 1891.
. In these he followed the standard academic practice of first painting loose, preparatory sketches
(Beached, ca. 1881-2) prior to more conventionally finished exhibition pieces. The early portraits (Portrait of Walter Griffin, 1881, Portland Museum of Art
) also evidence rigorous craftsmanship.
While studying in Paris, Bunker's summer excursions to the countryside resulted in another series, this time of scenes of Larmor, a town in Brittany. The focus of these compositions, be it church spire (Brittany Town Morning, Larmor, 1884, Terra Foundation for American Art), cemetery cross, or a lone tree (Tree, 1884-5, private collection), was invariably that of a richly painted, dark graphic shape against a bright sky. Nevertheless, the pictures are characterized by soft atmospheric effects and tonal subtlety. No less subtle are the landscapes Bunker painted after returning to America; paintings done in South Woodstock, Connecticut (Pines Beyond the Fence, 1886, private collection) still favor dramatic value contrasts, with subjects carefully painted against a light sky, but the palette has grown lighter, the color more saturated.
By 1887 Bunker completed his Portrait of Anne Page, a painting requiring much labor, but one of his most poignant works. In its restrained use of color, delicate modeling of form, and aesthetic elegance it is reminiscent of the works of Thayer and James McNeill Whistler. There soon followed the Boston commissions, portraits mostly of male sitters—still somber in tone, they are painted in a more confident manner, suggesting the influence of Sargent (Portrait of George Augustus Gardner, 1888, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
That Bunker spent the summer of 1888 painting with Sargent is verified by personal correspondence, as well as through several pieces by the latter artist (Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot, 1888, Terra Foundation for American Art), but no paintings of the English sojourn by Bunker have survived; possibly he destroyed them in dissatisfaction. However, once back in Boston the experience came to fruition, for over the next two years Bunker produced a series of canvases which evidenced that he was one of the first American artists to fully understand and successfully practice impressionism. In the Greenhouse, ca. 1888, Chrysanthemums, 1888 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), The Pool, Medfield, 1889 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and Meadow Lands, 1890 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) all feature a rich palette, vertiginous compositions, and his unique "fish hook" shaped brush strokes.
At the same time, Bunker's last figure pieces remained faithful to his academic training. Jessica
, 1890 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), The Mirror, 1890 (Terra Foundation for American Art), and Eleanor Hardy Bunker, 1890 (Metropolitan Museum of Art) are characterized by a restricted color range and heightened elegance.
and Lilla Cabot Perry
. It was a student of Paxton's named R. H. Ives Gammell
who did the most to maintain Bunker's reputation, organizing two exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
in the 1940s, and publishing a biography in 1953. The current revival of interest in his work is the result of a less programmatic reassessment of 19th century art:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and innovator of American Impressionism
American Impressionism
Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
. His mature works include both brightly colored landscape paintings
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
and dark, finely drawn portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s and figures
Figure painting
Figure painting is a form of the visual arts in which the artist uses a live model as the subject of a two-dimensional piece of artwork using paint as the medium. The live model can be either nude or partly or fully clothed and the painting is a representation of the full body of the model...
. One of the major American painters of the late 19th century, and a friend of many prominent artists of the era, Bunker died from meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
at the age of 29.
Life
Bunker was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to Matthew Bunker, the secretary-treasurer of the Union Ferry Company, and his wife, Mary Anne Eytinge Bunker. In 1876 he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
and the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
. By 1880 he was participating in the annual exhibitions of the National Academy
National academy
A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanities. Typically the country's learned societies in...
, the American Watercolor Society
American Watercolor Society
The American Watercolor Society is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States. It was founded in 1866 by eleven painters and, originally, was known as the American Society of Painters in Water Colors...
, and the Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
Art Association.
In 1881 Bunker exhibited a watercolor at the Boston Art Club
Boston Art Club
The Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts, for nearly 157 years, serves as a nexus for Members and non Members to access the world of Fine Art. Currently more than 250 members maintain an active environment for the support and promotion of these works....
. He subsequently exhibited both oil paintings and watercolors at the Club in 1882 and 1883. In 1886, the American printmaker Louis Prang
Louis Prang
Louis Prang was an American printer, lithographer and publisher. He is sometimes known as the "father of the American Christmas card".- Youth :...
exhibited two of Bunker's works from his own collection at the Club.
In 1882 Bunker left New York to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, most notably with Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.-Life:Jean-Léon Gérôme was born...
. In the spring of 1883, accompanied by fellow students Charles A. Platt
Charles A. Platt
Charles Adams Platt was a prominent artist, landscape gardener, landscape designer, and architect of the "American Renaissance" movement. His garden designs complemented his domestic architecture.-Early career:...
and Kenneth R. Cranford, Bunker left Paris to travel through the French countryside and the coast of Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, returning to continue his studies in mid-October. The following year the three artists summered and painted in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
. By year's end Bunker had returned to New York City.
In 1885 Bunker was elected to the Society of American Artists
Society of American Artists
The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative....
. In October of that year, at the recommendation of James Carroll Beckwith
James Carroll Beckwith
James Carroll Beckwith was an American landscape, portrait and genre painter whose Impressionist style led to his recognition in the late nineteenth century as a prominent figure in American art.-Biography:...
, he moved to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
to teach at the Cowles Art School, where he was the chief instructor of figure and cast drawing, artistic anatomy, and composition. He lived and taught in the art school building. Concurrently Bunker was given his first solo exhibition, at Noyes and Blakeslee Gallery in Boston. Despite these successes, Bunker was homesick for France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and wrote of feeling "supremely ridiculous" in "this atmosphere of wealth and respectability". While meager finances prevented him from staying in Boston during the summer, let alone traveling to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Bunker did accept an invitation from Abbott Handerson Thayer
Abbott Handerson Thayer
Abbott Handerson Thayer was an American artist, naturalist and teacher. As a painter of portraits, figures, animals and landscapes, he enjoyed a certain prominence during his lifetime, as indicated by the fact that his paintings are part of the most important U.S. art collections...
to join him and paint in South Woodstock, Connecticut
South Woodstock, Connecticut
South Woodstock is a census-designated place in Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,211 at the 2000 census.It is notable as the former home of the now-defunct Annhurst College.-Geography:...
in 1886. In that year he also met Isabella Stewart Gardner
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Isabella Stewart Gardner – founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston – was an American art collector, philanthropist, and one of the foremost female patrons of the arts....
, who would prove to be a valuable friend and patron.
Bunker painted portraits during the winter of 1887, and spent the summer in Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport is a small coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, 35 miles northeast of Boston. The population was 21,189 at the 2000 census. A historic seaport with a vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island...
with artist friends; including Henry Oliver Walker
Henry Oliver Walker
Henry Oliver Walker was an American painter of figures and portraits best known for his mural decorations. His works include a series of paintings honoring various poets for the Library of Congress and decorations for public buildings such as the Appellate Court House in New York City, Bowdoin...
. In November he met John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
in Boston, during the latter's first working trip to America. In 1888 Bunker undertook a number of portrait commissions of important Bostonians, including members of the Gardner family, Samuel Endicott Peabody, and J. Montgomery Sears. Bunker spent the summer in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he joined Sargent and his family in Calcot, painting during the day and playing tennis in the evening.
Medfield, Massachusetts
Medfield is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,024 according to the 2010 Census. Medfield is an affluent community about 17 miles southwest of Boston....
, and enjoyed his most productive season of painting. In the fall he returned to New York, writing daily to Hardy in Boston. By this time, Bunker's circle of friends included not only Sargent, Gardner, and Platt, but Thomas Wilmer Dewing, William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase was an American painter known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons The New School for Design.- Early life and training :He was born in Williamsburg , Indiana, to the family...
, Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...
, William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...
, Charles Martin Loeffler
Charles Martin Loeffler
Charles Martin Loeffler was a German-born American violinist and composer.- Birthplace :Throughout his career Loeffler claimed to have been born in Mulhouse, Alsace and almost all music encyclopedias give this fabricated information. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his...
, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
, as well.
In 1890 Bunker first exhibited his impressionist landscapes at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. He received an offer to teach at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, and planned to take over William Merritt Chase's class in Brooklyn that winter. In June he visited the art colony
Art colony
right|300px|thumb|Artist houses in [[Montsalvat]] near [[Melbourne, Australia]].An art colony or artists' colony is a place where creative practitioners live and interact with one another. Artists are often invited or selected through a formal process, for a residency from a few weeks to over a year...
at Cornish, New Hampshire
Cornish, New Hampshire
Cornish is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,640 at the 2010 census. Cornish has three covered bridges. Each August, it is home to the Cornish Fair.-History:...
, and in July returned to paint further at Medfield. On October 2 Bunker married Eleanor Hardy in Boston. The Cornish Colony Artist, Henry Oliver Walker, was Best Man at Bunker's wedding. Bunker had been Walker's Best Man at Walker's wedding the previous year. The couple then moved to New York. Returning to Boston to celebrate Christmas with the Hardy family, Bunker fell ill. On December 28 he died of heart failure, probably caused by cerebro-spinal meningitis. Platt and other friends organized a memorial exhibition at the St. Botolph Club, held in 1891.
Work
The paintings of Bunker's early maturity in New York (ca. 1880-82) were often marine subjects, featuring a series of beached boats, painted on Long IslandLong Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. In these he followed the standard academic practice of first painting loose, preparatory sketches
Oil sketch
An Oil sketch or oil study is an artwork made primarily in oil paints that is more abbreviated in handling than a fully finished painting. Originally these were created as preparatory studies or modelli, especially so as to gain approval for the design of a larger commissioned painting...
(Beached, ca. 1881-2) prior to more conventionally finished exhibition pieces. The early portraits (Portrait of Walter Griffin, 1881, Portland Museum of Art
Portland Museum of Art
The Portland Museum of Art is an art museum in Portland, Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882, it is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District, and is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S...
) also evidence rigorous craftsmanship.
While studying in Paris, Bunker's summer excursions to the countryside resulted in another series, this time of scenes of Larmor, a town in Brittany. The focus of these compositions, be it church spire (Brittany Town Morning, Larmor, 1884, Terra Foundation for American Art), cemetery cross, or a lone tree (Tree, 1884-5, private collection), was invariably that of a richly painted, dark graphic shape against a bright sky. Nevertheless, the pictures are characterized by soft atmospheric effects and tonal subtlety. No less subtle are the landscapes Bunker painted after returning to America; paintings done in South Woodstock, Connecticut (Pines Beyond the Fence, 1886, private collection) still favor dramatic value contrasts, with subjects carefully painted against a light sky, but the palette has grown lighter, the color more saturated.
By 1887 Bunker completed his Portrait of Anne Page, a painting requiring much labor, but one of his most poignant works. In its restrained use of color, delicate modeling of form, and aesthetic elegance it is reminiscent of the works of Thayer and James McNeill Whistler. There soon followed the Boston commissions, portraits mostly of male sitters—still somber in tone, they are painted in a more confident manner, suggesting the influence of Sargent (Portrait of George Augustus Gardner, 1888, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
At the same time, Bunker's last figure pieces remained faithful to his academic training. Jessica
Jessica (painting)
Jessica is an 1890 painting by Dennis Miller Bunker in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is considered one of Bunker's finest figure paintings, and has been described by art historian Theodore Stebbins as "among the most evocative" works of its time....
, 1890 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), The Mirror, 1890 (Terra Foundation for American Art), and Eleanor Hardy Bunker, 1890 (Metropolitan Museum of Art) are characterized by a restricted color range and heightened elegance.
Legacy
Although highly regarded during his lifetime, the 20th century assessment of American Impressionism was largely negative, and Bunker's work was all but forgotten soon after his death. His teachings influenced a number of painters (upon his resignation from the Cowles school, his students wrote a letter of appreciation, urging him to reconsider), among whom were William McGregor PaxtonWilliam McGregor Paxton
William McGregor Paxton was an American Impressionist painter.Born in Baltimore, the Paxton family came to Newton Corner in the mid-1870s, where William's father James established himself as a caterer. At 18, William won a scholarship to attend the Cowles Art School, where he began his art studies...
and Lilla Cabot Perry
Lilla Cabot Perry
Lilla Cabot Perry was an American artist who worked in the Impressionist style, rendering portraits and landscapes in the free form manner of her mentor, Claude Monet. Perry was an early advocate of the French Impressionist style and contributed to its reception in the United States...
. It was a student of Paxton's named R. H. Ives Gammell
R. H. Ives Gammell
Robert Hale Ives Gammell , American muralist, portrait painter, art teacher, and writer on art, was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1893. In 1911, he enrolled in the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts...
who did the most to maintain Bunker's reputation, organizing two exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
in the 1940s, and publishing a biography in 1953. The current revival of interest in his work is the result of a less programmatic reassessment of 19th century art:
"Thus, depending upon the viewpoint of the writer, Bunker can be seen as either a traditionalist or an innovator. In truth, he was both".