Anne Dunn

 

VEGETATION IN NIGADOO
oil on canvas
36 x 36 in.
unframed
$3,500

 

STUDY - LAKE NIGADOO III
pastel and charcoal on paper
24 x 18 in.
framed
$1,500

 

VEGETATION AT NIGADOO II
oil on canvas
30 x 40 in.
unframed
$4,000

 

STUDIO INTERIOR WITH DESK #2
oil on canvas
36 x 28.5 in.
$3,000

 

STILL LIFE WITH TOMATO 1
oil on canvas board
8 x 10 in.
framed
$850

 

TWO TOMATOES, MELON AND PEPPER
oil on canvas board
10 x 12 in.
unframed
$1,000

 

VEGETABLES AND TURTLE 1
oil on canvas board
9 x 12 in.
unframed
$950

 

SWEET PEAS
oil on canvas
7 x 5 in.
$750

 

ANEMONES I
oil on canvas
9.5 x 7.5 in.
$1,500

 

 

Anne Dunn was born in London, daughter of New Brunswick Industrialist Sir James Hamet Dunn. Although she now lives in France, her life is deeply rooted in New Brunswick, returning every summer to her log cabin on the North Shore to paint.

Dunn's training at the Chelsea School of Art (London), 1945-1950, included instruction from such notable artists as Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore, and from Fernand Leger at the Anglo French Art Centre (London). In Paris, she studied at Academie Julien; and in New York at the National School of Fine Art.

Exhibiting since 1957 in London, Paris and New York, her work has also been seen regularly at Gallery 78 since 1978. Among international collections, her paintings and drawings are found at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the UNB Art Centre, and the New Brunswick Art Bank.

The subject of New Brunswick landscape represents the familiar images of Anne Dunn's paintings. However, the gestural brush, or pen and pencil markings and washes of colors are less concerned with the details of representation than with an orchestration of airy atmospheric effects and sensuous responses that take the form of droopy tangled webs and scattered jottings. Forces and forms of life and death intermingle in the vegetation of her forests and flowers, backlit with an eerie acidic palette or simply strung on lines and shapes on white paper. A summer's visit to her camp in the woods at Nigadoo, on the North Shore, saw her return to "the basics" by concentrating on drawings with charcoal providing a rich, dense tapestry of lines and patterns, here and there highlighted with colored chalks. In this series, the details of representation are important. She weaves them into the composition with fluid assured strokes leaving important breathing spaces in between. The drawings reveal the strong graphic element which forms the backbone of her art.

" Anne Dunn is one of the most tenacious draftsmen around, and as she knows what to put in or leave out, we end up knowing that chill clear neck of the woods as well as if we lived there ourselves."
-John Russell - The New York Times, May 18, 1979

" ...These somewhat mysterious drawings project an air that is both sensuous and ascetic."
-John Ashbery - New York Magazine, May 21, 1979

" ...for Anne Dunn drawing is a satisfying expression of itself. She relies on simplicity to imply the complexities of things."
- John Bernard Myers - Art World, New York , May 1982

" A true painter is on hand here, and one who could trust herself to work with emptiness."
- John Russell - The New York Times, November 15, 1985

"Dunn's work comes as a gift to an art world beleagered by trash. It is not precious, but it is extremely valuable, in its summation of things the way they were, are and still can be - if only the right artist sets her sights on them."
-Gerrit Henry - Art In America , March 1986