A MONA Moment The look is impish,
wary, perhaps shaded with haughtiness. The eyes look off to the side, preoccupied
and distant. A large fur stole envelops her shoulders adding regal bearing.
Well, she is royalty, the royalty of the stage. Her name is Theresa Brooks,
an African-American vaudeville performer, painted in 1921 for posterity by Nebraska
artist Augustus Dunbier. The story goes that Dunbier met her at an exhibition
of the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner at the Omaha Public Library.
Dunbier was one
of Nebraska's most accomplished artists. Over 70 years until his death in 1977,
he pursued a distinguished career as an artist, and was especially skilled in
landscape and portraiture. Born in Shelby in Polk County in 1888, his family
moved back to Germany for a period, enabling him to study art for seven years
at the renowned Royal Academy at Dusselldorf. When he returned to America to
make his home in Omaha, in 1916, he was in command of all the technical tools
necessary for a successful career in art.
He was profoundly
influenced by the American Impressionists, spending time in the New Hope Pennsylvania
Impressionist artist colony. He came in contact with the "Ashcan" school of
artists, particularly George Luks, and their more painterly style, a style in
which the movement and rhythm of thick brushstrokes is visible in the painting.
Much of his work uses "Glare" aesthetic, in which bright light reflects on broad,
colored surfaces, creating a hard edge to forms in the landscape and an intense
richness of color. These three influences were not necessarily compatible, but
he used them all at one time or another.
The common thread
of these differing approaches is color, and Dunbier was foremost a colorist.
Commenting to one of his students he said:
"Painting is
like music, you need to orchestrate it. If it's a rainy day, paint the silvery
effect of the day. If it's a sunny day, paint the warm effect of the light.
Don't paint what you see, grass isn't green, it's silvery blue or a warm yellow,
according to how the light is affecting it. It's a matter of attitude, you manipulate
the color in order to create the mood."
And as we look
at this portrait of Theresa Brooks, what sort of attitude, what sort of mood
has Dunbier created through color.
Four colors dominate
the painting: the rich violet of the background with its blue highlights; the
green of her hat; the dark fur stole with subtle suggestions of all these colors;
and the light brown flesh tones of her face richened by hints of orange, and
a few daubs of green.
The fur stole regally
wraps her shoulders, enlarging her presence and importance like the dark ermine
robe of a portrait of Dutch nobility. The Rembrandtesque feeling is further
suggested by the shadow cast over her right eye by the brim of her hat. These
broad areas of dark color provide a feeling of repose and the dignified bearing.
What is decidedly
unRembrandtesque is that delicious, pinkish/violet background, erupting sensually
in her lips, the color of her lipstick. Her green hat surges into that pool
of violet with the sureness, the hand of an artist who knows how to delight
our senses.
Augustus Dunbier
By Ron Roth
Director
Museum of Nebraska Art
