Anne Dunn

Anne Dunn (born 4 September 1929) is an English artist associated with the second generation of the School of London.

Background and education

Born in London, England, Dunn is the daughter of the Canadian steel magnate Sir James Dunn, 1st baronet (1874–1956) and his second wife, Irene Clarice Richards, a former musical-comedy actress who had previous been married to Francis Douglas, 11th Marquess of Queensberry.

Dunn studied in London at Chelsea School of Art (1949–50) and at the Anglo-French Centre (1952) under Henry Moore and guest artist Fernand Léger before going to the Académie Julian in Paris, France in 1952.

Career

Dunn's art has been exhibited in Europe and North America and can be seen at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the Arts Council Collection in London, and many private collections. Two drawings and two paintings are in the Government Art Collection: U.K. Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Her first solo show was at the Leicester Galleries of London in 1957, with subsequent shows there in 1959, 1960, 1962, and 1964. Thereafter her major exhibitions took place in New York with shows at the Fischbach Gallery in 1967, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1989.

In 1990 Dunn had a solo show at the Christopher Hull Gallery in London. Richard Shone wrote in the catalogue: "Call these paintings landscapes if you must, fragments of nature. But Dunn is no 'impressionist', relating her findings with a nice exactitude of representation (though that is there too). Nor is she part of that tradition of landscape-abstraction, tightroping between 'pure' painting and the flora and fauna of the place itself. She needs the subject but needs the painting more. This is most clearly seen in the spectrum of her 'unreal' colour which, descriptive to a point, transcends the motif, is defiantly not its portrait."

Her most recent solo show was in 2005 at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York.

Critical opinion

" Anne Dunn is one of the most tenacious draftsmen around, and as she knows what to put in or leave out, we end up knowing that chill clear neck of the woods as well as if we lived there ourselves." -John Russell - The New York Times, 18 May 1979

" ...These somewhat mysterious drawings project an air that is both sensuous and ascetic." -John Ashbery - New York Magazine, 21 May 1979

" ...for Anne Dunn drawing is a satisfying expression of itself. She relies on simplicity to imply the complexities of things." -John Bernard Myers - Art World, New York, May 1982

" A true painter is on hand here, and one who could trust herself to work with emptiness." - John Russell - The New York Times, 15 November 1985

"Dunn's work comes as a gift to an art world beleagered by trash. It is not precious, but it is extremely valuable, in its summation of things the way they were, are and still can be - if only the right artist sets her sights on them." Gerrit Henry - Art in America, March 1986

Her close friendships with poets resulted in illustrations and covers for books by John Ashbery, William Corbett, Barbara Guest and James Schuyler. From 1964-68 she edited the journal Art and Literature with Rodrigo Moynihan, Sonia Orwell and John Ashbery. A taped interview with the artist is held by the National Life Story Collection at the British Library Sound Archive.

Personal life

Dunn's first husband was the artist Michael Wishart (1928–1996); they were married for 10 years before divorcing; by him, she has one son, Francis Wishart, a painter and winemaker. Michael Wishart's autobiography High Diver 1978 is dedicated to her and gives a touching picture of the artist as a young woman.

Immediately after she and Wishart divorced, in 1960, Dunn married the Anglo-Spanish artist Rodrigo Moynihan (1910–1990), as his second wife. By him she has a son, Danny Moynihan, an artist and writer, as well as a stepson, John Moynihan.

She has been painted and drawn by many fellow artists including Joe Brainard, Lucian Freud, and Rodrigo Moynihan.

Dunn has links with France, Switzerland and New York City, but spends parts of her summers at a retreat on the Nigadoo River near Bathurst, New Brunswick.