George Bunker

George Bunker held high academic positions in two important art institutions, first in Philadelphia and then in Houston; but most of his work was accomplished at Aix-en-Provence in France, where he owned part of Bibemus Quarry, the famous site of several works by Cézanne, and off the coast of Maine, on Cranberry Island, where he also owned land and kept a studio.

All of Bunker's work was rooted in the landscape. Working outdoors in a variety of media including pastel, he filled his sketchbook with studies that became the basis for his finished drawings, collage, prints and paintings which reveal his debt to Cézanne. As with Cézanne, the landscape as perceived -- the quarries, woodlands, shorelines, and fields that appear throughout the oeuvre -- were starting points for Bunker. Over the years his landscapes became increasingly abstracted and minimal, with less emphasis on the rhythms of a place and more on its overall structure and color.

Ruth Fine, National Gallery of Art

Text © National Gallery of Art, 2020