Newport #860 by Louis Bunce
- Title: Newport #860
- Artist: Louis Bunce
- Medium: Mixed media
- Size: 45.5"h x 49"w
- Creation date: 1957
- Added to collection: 2014
- Donor: Purchased by Portland Community College, Rock Creek Campus
- Campus: Rock Creek
- Location: B7/1 Main-Hallway gallery
The unique, large collage in our collection ("Newport #860") dates from the same time as Bunce's Portland International Airport mural when the artist was exploring cubist structure. During this period Bunce was drawn to the Oregon coast for inspiration for many abstract paintings and "Newport #860" is part of this group. This collage has some of the same formal elements as his famous airport mural: strong rhythmic structure, dynamic sense of motion, all with a graphic punch. Bunce loved the element of improvisation and rhythmic structure in jazz music, and this collage has indeed a jazzy feeling.
Bunce is a sort of lynchpin in the Rock Creek Art Collection: he was a teacher at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (formerly the Museum Art School) and mentor to many of the artists whose work is at Rock Creek: George Johanson, Lucinda Parker, Jack Portland, Eunice Parsons, Manuel Izquierdo, Bill Hoppe, Jack McLarty and others. Bunce worked in many different styles and deeply assimilated most of the major art movements of the 20th Century from American Regionalism (he painted murals for the WPA) to Cubism to Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting (he was close friends with many abstract expressionists and served as an important conduit between Portland and the New York School).