AUGUSTUS W. DUNBIER (1888-1977)

Augustus W. Dunbier was a prolific oil painter and a long time resident (1915 to 1977) of Omaha, Nebraska, where he became well-established as a portrait painter and private teacher. He was one of early Nebraska's most successful and influential artists. Dunbier's career was one of the longest, uninterrupted art careers of any Nebraska painter and he was an important teacher to his peers and the next generation of Nebraska artists. One can still see the influences of Augustus Dunbier in the work of many Nebraska painters today.

His training was at the Dusseldorf Academy in Germany where he learned to paint in the "dark manner" of the old masters. During his developing years, Impressionism was fast becoming the "advanced" style and Dunbier's natural love of color moved him to adopt the Impressionist manner. Upon returning to America, Dunbier spent some time painting with other "Nebraska artists", Robert Henri and Robert Spencer. Spencer is generally recognized as a technically orthodox impressionist painter but Henri is known more for the vigorous realism of the Ashcan School. These artists seem to have reinforced Dunbier's fear of the tyranny of style and helped him determine to go his own way.

While Dunbier made his living primarily as a portrait painter, his favorite subject was landscape. While studying at the Chicago Art Institute, Dunbier met Walter Ufer who persuaded Gus to join him in Taos in the summer of 1921. Eventually Dunbier became friends with all the Taos artists especially Ufer and E.I. Couse. The Southwest landscape impressed Dunbier strongly and he returned there seasonally for the rest of his life.

As the years passed, Dunbier visited and revisited just about every corner of North America, painting the mountains of California, New Mexico, Colorado, the desert of Arizona, harbors and mountains on both coasts, and landscapes in the Midwest, Texas, and Pacific Northwest.

Known as a colorist, Dunbier did paintings 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.

Following are words of this artist, a man totally committed to creating beauty in his landscapes, still lifes, and portraits.

• You want to paint the mood of the day.
• Painting is like music, you need to orchestrate it.
• Don't just paint light and dark; use chroma. Push the color.
• Paint for the Love of Color.
• Get it Keyed In
• Put Some Love Into It
• Paint Carelessly Careful... Catch that Will-O-The-Wisp
• Of plein-air painting: "If you can't paint it with all of this hanging out there at the end of your nose, how do you expect to do it better back in your basement."
• I have always likened painting to music... Color vibrations are sound vibrations to me.
• Whatever it is in our minds that differentiates us from a cow, horse, or dog, it is that we see beauty.
• You must be happy while you're painting. If you're not, don't pick up the brush.
• If you can't do a painting in several hours, you may as well throw in the towel.