Dennis Miller Bunker: New York

"Jessica" by Dennis Miller Bunker

"In the time running up to his marriage with Eleanor Hardy, Dennis Miller Bunker went to New York, planning eventually to take her to live in that city. He settled in a studio near one occupied by his friend Charles Platt. In New York he found such men as Thomas Dewing, H.O. Walker, William M. Chase, Stanford White, St. Gaudens, Alfred Q. Collins and Frank Millet. Sargent was a prominent figure in the city that winter and Loeffler a frequent visitor. The Player's Club filled the place in Bunker's life which in Boston had been taken by the Tavern. 

Bunker had become established as a portrait painter in Boston and had been able to put aside a fair sum on money. In all probability he believed that he would soon have others to execute in New York, but the gamble was injudicious. He did not succeed in getting commissions during that winter and he necessarily drew upon the saving of previous years in order to live. He painted from professional models, a procedure which, when the models are satisfactory, often enables a painter to do his best work. The results in this case were 'Jessica' and 'The Mirror.' But the artist's bank account became sadly depleted.

Like many another artist, before and since, he feared that his constant preoccupation with painting would not be understood by his future wife, that it was perhaps hardly fair to ask any woman to share a life already dedicated to art. He wrote Eleanor:

'Do you know what it is to live with a painter? Of course you don't! Do you see me getting up at two in the morning with a candle to look at my picture or rising at six to play on the piano, as I did yesterday, in a dressing gown, with my eyes half open or sitting up all night to fight over something that will seem to you of no importance? Will you care for the species of chimpanzee that we suspect of great talent? Will you feel the pang and the weeks of distress that come when you paint a poor thing? Will you be able to stand the conceit and absurd and idiotic talk when we've done a good morsel of painting? ...Are you to see me rude to all sorts of swagger people and afraid of the wash-woman?'

In early spring his eyes bothered him and for a time he had to give up painting for a time. In June he went on a yachting trip with friends, then visited Cornish, New Hampshire, with Charles Platt," but was ready to return to Medfield to resume painting that summer.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Dennis Miller Bunker" by R.H. Ives Gammell.)