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Lot Essay
During the summers of 1883 and 1884, Dennis Miller Bunker left Paris where he was studying at the École des Beaux-Arts to travel to the French countryside with fellow students Charles A. Platt and Kenneth R. Cranford. Eschewing the popular American artist colonies in Brittany, such as Pont-Aven and Concarneau, Bunker and his friends instead chose to settle in the more isolated coastal town of Larmor. In the present work, Bunker presents the townscape under a band of textural, cloudy blue sky, which is only interrupted by the towering spire of Notre Dame de Larmor. In the foreground, Bunker's characteristic impressive detail captures the grassy fields dotted with farm animals.
A larger version of this composition entitled Brittany Town Morning, Larmor is in the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois. Erica Hirshler writes, "Brittany Town Morning, Larmor was the most important painting Bunker made in Larmor. In it, he abandoned the moody soft light and indistinct compositions of his previous summer’s work and created an image of great clarity and mesmerizing strength...Bunker’s friend Joe Evans must have admired [Brittany Town Morning, Larmor], which he could have seen when he visited Bunker in the fall or later, when Bunker’s work was exhibited in New York at the National Academy of Design in April 1885, for Bunker inscribed a small version of the composition to him.” (Dennis Miller Bunker: American Impressionist, exhibition catalogue, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994, pp. 32-33)
A larger version of this composition entitled Brittany Town Morning, Larmor is in the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois. Erica Hirshler writes, "Brittany Town Morning, Larmor was the most important painting Bunker made in Larmor. In it, he abandoned the moody soft light and indistinct compositions of his previous summer’s work and created an image of great clarity and mesmerizing strength...Bunker’s friend Joe Evans must have admired [Brittany Town Morning, Larmor], which he could have seen when he visited Bunker in the fall or later, when Bunker’s work was exhibited in New York at the National Academy of Design in April 1885, for Bunker inscribed a small version of the composition to him.” (Dennis Miller Bunker: American Impressionist, exhibition catalogue, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994, pp. 32-33)