RUPERT BUNNY

Angelo Sommaruga, Paris; thence by descent
Maria Caputo Sommaruga
Artcurial Briest, Paris, January 2002
Jacques Desmais, Avignon, June 2005
Private collection, Melbourne

Rupert Bunny painted landscapes throughout his long and distinguished international career, first in the north of France, then in Paris and at Royan. By the 1920s he was in the south of France, capturing the transient beauty of springtime at such places as La Lavandou, Avignon, and Bandol. Scenes in the Botanic Gardens, of Toorak, and Albert Park followed on his return to Melbourne in 1932.

Although schooled in the best figurative traditions of the French Salon, Bunny, like many of his fellow Parisian artists, turned to the landscape during the summer holidays, attracted by the countryside and coasts of Brittany. He began working there in about 1887, his subjects over the next twenty years including harvest scenes in the Finistère, the coastal town of Brignogan, and the northern fishing village at Etaples. Tonal in manner, with colour schemes suited to the more temperate climate and cooler skies of the north, his palette became lighter, as in this painting, as he moved progressively south. Paysage has all the atmospheric freshness and painterly spontaneity of plein-air work, its style indicating that it was painted in the first years of the new century.