Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

Canyon, TX

806-651-2244

http://www.panhandleplains.org/



 

Dunbier Paints the Southwest


Beginning June 23, 2001, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum at Canyon, Texas, will feature the work of artist Augustus W. Dunbier. This exhibition will include some 50 paintings from the estate of the Nebraska artist who painted all over the United States, Europe, and Mexico.

Augustus W. Dunbier, (1888-1977) was a prolific oil painter, well-known for his colorful landscapes, still life, portraits and figures. At age sixteen, Dunbier studied at the Royal Academy in Dusseldorf and associated with many noted artists working in Europe at that time. In 1915, Dunbier returned to the United States and served in the US Army Camouflage Corps. After World War I, he spent a year on the East Coast, painting at the artist colony in New Hope, Pennsylvania. (left: A New Mexico Mountain Afternoon, oil, 24 x 28 inches)

Dunbier visited and revisited every corner of North America, painting the mountains of Montana and Colorado, the coasts and harbors of Massachusetts and Oregon, and the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. From 1953 until 1970, he spent all but two winters painting landscapes in and around Tucson and Phoenix. (left: A Turn Toward Taos, oil, 20 x 24 inches)

Known as a colorist, his paintings are characterized by assertive, contrasting colors and bold brushwork. His landscapes were both realistic and capturing of intangibles such as season, temperature, time of day, atmospheric light, and impending weather. Dunbier completed most of these landscapes "en plein air," entirely out-of-doors, taking no more than several hours for each work.

During his sixty-two year professional career, painting several paintings a week, he held to his own course, undistracted by fads and progressing steadily from canvas to canvas portraying what is now, in retrospect, a quite marvelous variety of subjects and styles. (left: Sunday Afternoon, oil, 20 x 24 inches)

Dunbier Paints the Southwest will be on exhibit at the PPHM June 23 through August 18, 2001 in the Main Art Gallery.

Read more in Resource Library Magazine about the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.

Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line to see enlargements.

For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.


This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information. rev. 5/23/11

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