History of Art:Dennis M.Bunker & J.S.Sargent
Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot
by John Singer Sargent
1888,Oil on canvas,Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston Illinois
Dennis Miller Bunker was a young American painter from Boston. He had first met Sargent in Boston the winter of '87-'88 through Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner, a patron of both Sargent and the young Bunker.
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In the Summer, Bunker plans to visited Sargent at Calcot and writes to Mrs Gardner:
June 25, 1888
I expect to be off in the country in a few days. Sargent has found a charming place near Reading . . . . willows, boats -- and I hope pretty girls-- . . . I don't know just how you are going to see J.S.S. He may be going to Paris but you know how hard it is to tell where he'll go . . . The youngest Miss Sargent [Violet] is awfully pretty-- charming. What if i should fall in love with her? Dreadful thought, but I'm sure to -- I see it coming -- It is at moments like these that I feel most keenly the absence of your restraining hand.
Dennis Miller
(Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Correspondence, Archives of American Art)
(read more)
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Chrysanthemums,1888
In the Greenhouse
The Pool, Medfield,1889
Wild Asters,1889
Meadow Lands,1890
Marshland, Medfield,1890
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"...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."(c)
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