Dennis Bunker Painting at Calcot
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Sargent met the young American artist Dennis Miller Bunker (1861–1890) in Boston during Sargent’s first working trip to America in 1887. Sargent invited Bunker to spend time with him in England, and, the following summer, Bunker visited Sargent in Calcot, a suburb near Reading, where this picture was painted.
Sargent poses Bunker standing by a riverside, with a female figure, almost certainly Sargent’s sister Violet, seated on the bank. Bunker, holding his palette, has stepped back from his canvas—presumably to study the overall effect of the work in progress. Sargent renders the lush green landscape in vibrant, broken color and with highly visible brushstrokes. Bunker, one of the first American painters to embrace an Impressionist practice, died suddenly from meningitis only two years after this painting was made.
Sargent poses Bunker standing by a riverside, with a female figure, almost certainly Sargent’s sister Violet, seated on the bank. Bunker, holding his palette, has stepped back from his canvas—presumably to study the overall effect of the work in progress. Sargent renders the lush green landscape in vibrant, broken color and with highly visible brushstrokes. Bunker, one of the first American painters to embrace an Impressionist practice, died suddenly from meningitis only two years after this painting was made.
Artwork Details
- Title: Dennis Bunker Painting at Calcot
- Artist: John Singer Sargent (American, Florence 1856–1925 London)
- Date: 1888
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 27 × 25 1/4 in. (68.6 × 64.1 cm)
Framed: 34 5/8 in. × 32 3/4 in. × 2 1/4 in. (87.9 × 83.2 × 5.7 cm) - Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1999.130
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing