b/w etching
1989
16 3/4 x 14 1/2
edition: 65
signed in pencil
David Bumbeck creates a portrait of Henri Matisse using that artist's imagery and iconography to frame the portrait. This impression is #25 from an edition of 65 Throughout his career Bumbeck has been passionately engaged in the study of earlier art and artists, and among his more than 1,100 former students are a number of well known and respected artists who have expressed their gratitude to him for imparting this passion. Bumbeck's art is primarily figurative, with the nude female figure a particular focus. Enamored equally of artists like Picasso, de Chirico, and Joseph Cornell, Bumbeck's sensibility is both enigmatic and mysterious. He is likely to quote de Chirico's "What shall I love if not enigma?" when asked about the subject matter of his own works. (left: David Bumbeck, Veiled Horizon, 2000-2001, bronze, 15 1/2 x 12 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist) The artist's recent sculptures show appreciation for Egyptian, Greek, and Renaissance imagery, but they also put a new spin on aspects of African art, Currier and Ives, and a figure derived from an 18th-century Maltese painting. One need not know the specific sources of his imagery to appreciate this artist's prolific imagination, but one cannot fail to be impressed by his ability to translate his inspirations and enthusiasms into the assertions of an independent sensibility. In addition to his teaching at the College, Bumbeck was director of the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Gallery at the College from 1973 until 1985, and he has played a strategic role in the growth and development of the College's art collection. He has exhibited widely in this country and abroad, with solo exhibitions at Dartmouth College; the University of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff; The Mary Ryan Gallery, New York; and the Everson Museum, Syracuse. Bumbeck's works are included in many important print collections, including those of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Boston Public Library, as well as the College's. Listed in "Who's Who in American Art," Bumbeck was named Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1992.
