Louis Bunce - Exhibitions - Russo Lee Gallery | Portland | Oregon

Louis Bunce installation view February 2017

Louis Bunce | Tracing a Legacy | Installation View | February 2017

Untitled (Williams, Oregon July 1953)

1953

oil on canvas

37 x 29 inches

Rocky Landscape, Klamath Falls, Ore.

1952

gouache and ink on paper

28 x 22 inches

Moment

1963

oil and collage on board

21.5 x 27.75 inches

Untitled Collage

c. 1945

mixed media on paper

22.5 x 19 inches

Untitled study of nursery rhymes

c. 1940

pencil on paper

18.25 x 24.5 inches

Castings

1942

pencil on paper

14 x 15 inches

Self Portrait

n.d.

watercolor and pen on paper

19 x 13.5 inches

Untitled (floral abstraction)

n.d.

graphite, ink, watercolor on board

15.5 x 15.75 inches

Untitled (female study BunL0204B)

1949

ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Untitled (female study BunL0204C)

1949

ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Untitled (female study BunL0204D)

1949

ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Untitled (abstract figure)

n.d.

watercolor and pen on board

24 x 17 inches

Press Release

In Tracing A Legacy, the Russo Lee Gallery reexamines the work of Louis Bunce, who was a pillar of the art community in Portland through much of the mid 20th century. Starting as a printmaker and painter in the 1930’s, exploring Surrealism and Cubist conventions, Bunce became a Northwest legend, influencing generations of artists through his teaching at the Museum Art School (now known at the Pacific Northwest College of Art). With drawings and paintings spanning decades, this exhibition is a compliment to the concurrent retrospective of Louis Bunce at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

One of the Northwest's most well-known artists, Louis Bunce studied at the Arts Student League in New York during the 1920's where he was influenced by the major pictorial styles of the 20th century. He began exhibiting in 1937 on both the east and west coasts and was honored in 1979 with a retrospective at the Portland Art Museum. In the 1950’s, he completed a major mural for the Portland International Airport, which is still installed today. As a teacher at the Pacific Northwest College of Art from 1946-1972 Bunce had a strong effect on the region’s painting and many of the young artists who came out of the school. His work is in numerous collections including the National Gallery in Washington D.C., the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Philadelphia Museum, the Newark Museum in New Jersey, the Victoria Museum in B.C., the Seattle Art Museum, and the Portland Art Museum in Oregon.