Colorado & Regional Art

Composition with Grain Elevators

Composition with Grain Elevators

Year 1951

Artist Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897–1968, American)

Media oil on board

Dimensions 18 1/4 x 23 1/4 inches

Charles Bunnell was born January 17, 1897 in Kansas City, Missouri. He moved to Colorado with his family after finishing high school, and established his career and life in Colorado Springs. After serving in World War I, he studied at the Broadmoor Art Academy with Boardman Robinson and Ernest Lawson and was asked to be Lawson’s assistant instructor in 1928. He also taught several summers at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1922, he married fellow student, Laura Palmer. Among his many achievements and projects, Bunnell was recommended for a Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural commission in 1934 by Boardman Robinson, as Robinson served as a local judge for WPA mural proposals. Bunnell also assisted Frank Mechau with the Colorado Springs post office murals in 1935. He was part of a traveling exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute, and also exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, the Kansas City Art Institute and other national venues. In the 1940s Bunnell’s work became more abstract and he experimented with Abstract Expressionism. Though his paintings are not large, they are powerful and highly inventive.

Not currently on view

Signature Signed "Bunnell 1951" lower right corner

Credit Line Collection Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art

Accession Number 2004.0232