Dennis Miller Bunker: Settling In

"Anne Page" by Dennis Miller Bunker

"Boston was ready to welcome newcomer Dennis Miller Bunker and he was scarcely settled before we find him writing:

'I have already been asked to dine and spend the evening at the St. Botolph Club by a man I've never seen but once in my life, Mr. A.V.S. Anthony, the Engraver. Is there no way for a fellow to be let alone? What on earth am I to do in a club? ...I'd like to get back to some place like Paris where people would know what a bad painter I was.'

But in a few weeks he was himself a member of the St. Botolph Club, as well as of the newly founded Tavern Club, then established at 1 Park Square. He immediately appreciated the quality of the men he met at these places, speaking of them as a clever crowd who 'all do something and most of them do it extremely well.' 

At the Tavern Club he made warm friends also. He could not have found such an atmosphere other than congenial. There were comparatively few painters in its membership at the time. The most distinguished of the ones then present was Frederick Porter Vinton, an artist insufficiently appreciated today. Others were Benjamin C. Porter, Ignaz Gaugengigl and Henry O. Walker. From its beginnings, election to the Tavern Club was based on a candidate's capacity for congenial comradeship rather than on accomplishment.

In due course, many of the men who met Dennis Bunker at theses places invited the promising young man to their homes and the hostesses of Boston were quick to extend invitations to so beguiling a newcomer. It opened a new world to the young painter through which he moved with an amused smile. He executed a number of portraits for the most prominent families. The most delightful houses opened their doors to him and he formed many strong and lasting friendships," but even so it was New York to which he aspired.

To be continued

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