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Augustus William Dunbier (January 1, 1888-September 11, 1977), was a Nebraskan Impressionist painter, best known for his landscapes. Dunbier was educated in Germany and the Art Institute of Chicago. He often worked in the southwest United States and painted landscapes, still lives, and portraits.

References

1. Moore, Ann (2008). Who is "The Lady in Red". Maltese Crossing 1(6), 1.

AUGUSTUS W DUNBIER 1888-1977

by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier, Daughter-In-Law of the Artist

Augustus Dunbier was a prolific oil painter, well known for his colorful landscapes, still lifes, portraits and figures. Most viewers would describe his work as Impressionism because of his brushwork, ability to capture brief moments in time, and the changing effects of light and color. Hating labels of any kind, Dunbier never used the term Impressionist to describe himself.

He was a long-time resident of Omaha, Nebraska, but traveled and painted widely throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico.

Certain pioneering aspects contribute to his unique career. He was the first Nebraska artist to paint regularly in the Southwest, where he established a seasonal pattern of working in Taos, New Mexico in the 1920s. His New Mexico friendship with artists Walter Ufer and Eanger Couse, beginning at the Chicago Art Institute, led to their sponsorship of Dunbier’s membership in the exclusive Salmagundi Club of New York City. Dunbier was also the first and for many years the only Nebraska-born painter to earn his living solely from his art. Of the early Nebraska painters, he was the most academically ‘credentialed’ because of his seven-year classical education at the Royal Art Academy in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a year at the Chicago Art Institute. Also, maintaining studios in Omaha from 1915 until 1977, Dunbier had one of the longest uninterrupted art careers of any Nebraska artist.

Although he was born on a Polk County farm near Stromsburg, Dunbier at age sixteen moved with his parents to Germany, where he studied at the Royal Academy (1907-1914), and associated with many noted artists then working in Europe. His primary instructor at the Academy was Adolf Munzer, a prominent Impressionist.

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 with George Luks and Robert Spencer, another Nebraska born artist whom he joined at the artist colony in New Hope, Pennsylvania. In the early 1920s, he spent a summer painting in Alaska, and when he heard the Pan-American Highway had been completed to Mexico City, he was on the road. He returned to Mexico a number of times with artist friends or with his family.

As the years passed, Dunbier visited and revisited just about 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 to 1970, he spent all but two winters painting landscapes in and around Tucson and Phoenix, which meant a decrease in production of his popular Nebraska snow scenes.

The majority of his landscapes, numbering over a thousand, were painted close to home in Nebraska where he loved the hills and trees, lakes and rivers, farm scenes and city scapes. His canvases are testimony to the fact that Nebraska provided more than enough excellent vistas for the trained and experienced eye without the need to either disparage or embellish.

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.

Dunbier, whose friends called him “Gus,” had a prestigious reputation as an art instructor and during his long life, taught numerous workshops and classes in Omaha and other communities throughout the Midwest. Gus was a tall, pipe smoking, angular man with a unique sense of humor and an ability to tell an entertaining story, making him popular with aspiring artists.

One of his long-time students, Jane Scott, wrote of his field trip teaching methods: “When we arrived at the landscape spot that we had chosen, we would each set up, and Gus would stop at each easel to see that everyone got started right. I still remember many of the comments Gus would make as we painted. “You want to paint the mood of the day. Painting is like music, you need to orchestrate it. If it’s rainy day, paint the silvery effect of the day. If it’s a sunny day, paint the warm effect of the light. Don’t paint what you see, . . . It’s a matter of attitude, you manipulate the colors in order to create the mood’ ” (Augustus Dunbier, Exhibition Catalog, Museum of Nebraska Art, April–June 1994).

In this same exhibition catalog, long-time student and close friend, Alton Larsen, recalled words that Dunbier uttered repeatedly in painting classes:

“Paint for the Love of Color” .

“Get it Keyed In!”

“Put some Love Into It!” .

“Paint Carelessly Careful.” .

“Catch That Will-O-The Wisp!” .

“There Is No Color Without Light.” .

“I Do Not Paint For Posterity.” .

During his sixty-two year professional career, painting several paintings a week, he held to his own course, not distracted by fads and progressing steadily from canvas to canvas portraying what is now, in retrospect, a quite marvelous variety of subjects and styles.

Museum Permanent Collections: Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney Panhandle Plains Museum, Canyon, Texas

Periodicals-Feature Articles: Western Art Digest, Jan/Feb 1987, Vol. XIV, No. 1 Southwest Art, March 1989, Vol. 18, No. 10 American Art Review, October 2001

Publications: Paint for the Love of Color: Augustus W. Dunbier, Lonnie Dunbier and Marcia Kmack; (Biography published October 2000); Who’s Who in American Art, 1923–1978; Artists of the American West, Doris Dawdy; Art Across America, William Gerdts; Artists in California, 1786-1940, Edan Hughes Index of Artists, Daniel Mallett; The Society of Independent Artists, Clark Marlor; Mantle Fielding Dictionary, Glenn Opitz A Survey of Nebraska Art, Kearney State College; Nebraska 75, Joslyn Art Museum; Augustus W Dunbier, Museum of Nebraska Art How to Draw Nebraska’s Sights and Symbols by Aileeen Weintraub. (Dunbier is the featured artist for Nebraska in this Rosen publication, which is part of a state series called A Kid’s Guide to Drawing America).

Posthumous One-Man Exhibitions: Spring 1993, Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney Summer, 1999, Mission San Juan Capistrano, California; Spring, 2000, Van Vechten Lineberry Museum in Taos, New Mexico Summer 2001 at Plains Panhandle Museum in Canyon, Texas Spring 2001 at the Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona Fall, 2001 Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney Winter 2002, Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Much of this information resulted from conversations with Roger Dunbier, son of the artist.

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• 1888 births
• 1977 deaths
• 20th-century American painters
• Impressionist painters
• American landscape painters