Capital City Arts Initiative

Artist’s Reception: Friday, May 10, 5 – 7pm
Exhibition Dates: May 10 – September 5, 2013
Exhibition Venue: CCAI Courthouse Gallery 885 E Musser Street, Carson City

Gus Bundy The Reno Portraits

The Capital City Arts Initiative [CCAI] announces its exhibition, The Reno Portraits, by the late Gus Bundy [1907 – 1984] at the CCAI Courthouse Gallery from May 10 – September 5, 2013. CCAI will host a reception for the exhibition on Friday, May 10 from 5 – 7pm. During the reception, Molly Bundy-Toral and Tina Bundy Nappe, the artist’s daughters, and Jim McCormick will give an informal talk about the exhibition beginning at 5:30pm. The Courthouse is located at 885 E Musser Street, Carson City. The exhibition and reception are free and the public is cordially invited. The gallery is open to the public Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm.

From his iconic wild horse photographs taken in the early 1950’s, Gus Bundy was known internationally as a photographer. But for more than twenty-years, he was also a prolific painter working with Reno’s Portrait Workshop. The Reno Portraits present a large body of the oil paintings by Bundy that have never before been exhibited. Bundy was born in Brooklyn in 1907 and studied art at the Art Students League in New York with some of the giants of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Following a trip to Japan in the late 1930’s, he and his wife decided to make their home and raise their daughters in northern Nevada where Bundy spent his life pursing his art career.

Active with the Portrait Workshop from the late 1950’s – the early 1980’s, Bundy painted dozens of portraits. Bundy aimed to capture the portrait sitters’ personalities and moods rather than giving viewers photographic snapshots. He used creative brushwork and lively color to paint a true likeness of each subject. The portraits also give viewers a charming reflection of the era through the individuals’ dress and hairstyles.

Professor Emeritus Jim McCormick, a long-time Bundy friend and colleague, has researched and written the exhibition essay, “Pose Please!” McCormick writes, “Gus Bundy rarely signed his work. Nor was it his practice to record the year of execution, or the models’ names, for that matter – all of which was perfectly consistent with his philosophy that making art was an activity in and of itself, ‘an enriching experience.’ The raison d’etre for his painting had little to do with documentation or commercialization. Bundy seldom priced his work. Sold few paintings. Held most of them in storage.”

CCAI’s group exhibition, BRIC Art 3, includes seventeen more Bundy paintings from the Portrait Workshop. This show is in the City’s BRIC facility at 108 E Proctor St, Carson City. The BRIC is open to the public Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm. BRIC Art 3 is up through August.

The University of Nevada Reno’s Special Collections Department now houses Bundy’s large collection of photographs, prints, and negatives. Gus Bundy’s Wild Horse photograph is used with permission from the Special Collections, University of Nevada-Reno Library. CCAI is grateful to Mr. Bundy’s family for loaning the paintings for both exhibitions.

The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered organization committed to the encouragement and support of artists and the arts and culture of Carson City and the surrounding region. The Initiative is committed to community building for the area’s diverse adult and youth populations through art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects.

CCAI is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, City of Carson City, Nevada Arts Council, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, John and Grace Nauman Foundation, and the Carson Nugget.

top image: Gus Bundy, photograph, Wild Horses, Smoke Creek Desert, 1951
center image: Gus Bundy, untitled, oil on paper, 26″ x 20″, no date
bottom image: [the artist’s daughters, l-r] Molly Bundy-Toral and Tina Bundy Nappe with Bundy drawings in BRIC Art 3, September 27, 2012