American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists that studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote letters home to family and friends describing their lives there. One of these artists was Dennis Miller Bunker, and here you will find letters dating from his time studying in Paris in the 1880s.
Many American artists traveled to Paris, France, to further their careers. Several of the American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists that studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote letters home to family and friends describing their lives there. One of these artists was Dennis Miller Bunker, and here you will find letters dating from his time studying in Paris in the 1880s.
Painter Dennis Miller Bunker (1861-1890) studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League with William Merritt Chase from 1878 to 1881. He traveled to Paris and attended the École des Beaux Arts, where Jean-Léon Gérôme was his teacher, and graduated in 1885. He returned to the US and taught at the Cowles Art School in Boston. He met John Singer Sargent there in 1888, and spent the subsequent summer painting landscapes with him. That summer was a turning point for Bunker's painting style as he became greatly influenced by impressionism. Bunker met Eleanor Heady and married her in 1890, but became ill soon after and died.
Explore the fully digitized Dennis Miller Bunker papers on the Archives of American Art website!