Louis Bunce, United States

Mid-Century Modern abstract painting by Louis Bunce, one of the Northwest’s most well-known artists. Titled “Alaska #1 – oil on paper.

Louis Bunce came to Portland with his parents in 1913. He attended high school and the Museum Art School before leaving for the Art Students League in New York. He established a New York connection that began when he first attended classes there in 1927 and continued over the years with frequent visits. He became friends with many promising artists, including Jackson Pollock and David Smith. In 1939 he worked for the WPA Easel Project in New York and by the time he returned to Portland he was an established artist on the East Coast. He worked at the WPA art center in Salem as an Instructor and Assistant Director. After WWII, Bunce joined the faculty of the Museum Art School in Portland, where he had been a student in 1925-1926. He taught there until his retirement in 1972. While maintaining a national reputation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, some of New York’s most prestigious galleries represented him. In a career that made him one of the most recognized names in Oregon’s art history, Bunce had many styles: cubism, expressionism, surrealism and abstractionism. Louis and wife Eda opened a full-time art gallery in Portland in 1949, called the Kharouba. —Text courtesy of the Portland Art Museum

Date: 1957
Dimensions: 27.5″W X “D X 33″H
Materials: Oil on Paper
Condition: Excellent
Number of Items: 1

ID# OB 38-6-18613-1958