Architectural Record - February 2020

Discovery: An Unknown Painting by Gordon Bunshaft

BY NICHOLAS ADAMS 2020-01-21 15:37:39

The author of the just-published Gordon Bunshaft and SOM: Building Corporate Modernism (Yale University Press) recently came across the only extant painting by the architect. Adams, professor emeritus at Vassar, tells the story here.

In her new book on the urban planner Ed Logue, Saving America’s Cities, Lizabeth Cohen makes a point I wish I’d had the wit to write in my own book on the architect Gordon Bunshaft. Writing a book, she notes, about someone recently deceased means forming your interpretation out on a windy promontory, balancing yourself against the opinions of people who knew your subject personally and, sometimes, intimately. The breeze is invigorating but it presents some difficulty when it comes to forming your own take. A trivial incident in the case of Bunshaft comes to mind. In the casual way of many biographers, I took to calling my subject by a pet-name: “Bun,” or “Uncle Bunny.” One of his former colleagues was outraged. “He was always Mr. Bunshaft!” he insisted—and was only partially assuaged when I sent him letters addressed “Dear Bun,” and diary entries in which the architect referred to himself as “Uncle Bunny.”

Another reality of writing about the relatively recently deceased (Bunshaft died in 1990) is that new information keeps popping up. One day I went to SOM in New York to see a box of letters from Bunshaft’s files that just had been discovered. In one stunning reply, he told his Pittsburgh client Jack Heinz that he would not be attending his son John Heinz’s fundraiser for his senate campaign because he was a Democrat and Heinz a Republican, and he just didn’t have money for politics. As a current partner observed when I showed him the letter: “Just send Heinz $25 and shut up.”

Bunshaft’s homage to Mirò(left); the architect at hisBeinecke Library (bottom).

Then, this past November, while at an event at Bunshaft’s Beinecke Library at Yale University, I met a collector who specializes in pre-1950 American abstract paintings, and among his holdings was an original “Bunshaft,” dated 1939. We made a date to meet at his house to see the painting. An oil on canvas entitled “Homage à Mirò,” it measures approximately 24” x 24”. The painting seems to show a series of sculptures, one possibly African with insect- or bird-like legs, another possibly classical set against a tilted white plane (possibly a table). To the left is another plane, possibly a painting, set against the table. Other faces or partial faces hover around the canvas. The palette is dominated by golds, reds, and white and (most surprisingly) touches of green, generally known as Bunshaft’s least favorite color.

But how can we be sure Bunshaft is the painter of this painting?

Of course, there is no certainty. The painting is signed in pencil on the back “Gordon Bunshaft 1939,” and the signature appears to be his, though possibly signed long after the painting was done. And Bunshaft was very fond of Mirò as an artist. In his war-time Greenwich Village apartment he had a panoramic photographic reproduction of the Mirò mural from SOM’s Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati placed over the mantelpiece. Later, after his success with Lever House (1952), he began to buy works by Mirò: he purchased one work, "Le Paysage" (1927), in 1958 from the Pierre Matisse Gallery for $15,450—and sold it in 1977 for $800,000 to the National Gallery in Australia!

Though he was an eager collector of painting and sculpture, we also know that he made paintings in the style of artists he admired, like this “Mirò,” to help create a particular interior environment. In his later Manhattan apartment, photographed by Ezra Stoller in the 1950s, there was a “Mondrian” by Bunshaft (its location today is unknown). So far as we know, there are no other paintings by him in existence, so the discovery of what seems to be a new painting is exceptional. This impulse—to make a work in the manner of a painter he admired—points to his ambitions and the worlds he wanted so badly to inhabit. These were places he ultimately did come to inhabit, but in 1939—with only a couple architectural works to his name that he called “not lousy”— as he completed work on the Venezuela Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair, that future was only a dream. How a young Jewish man from Buffalo would make his mark in the world was far from clear. Art provided one route forward. We can imagine that works like “his” Mondrian or “his” Mirò became the ornaments of his apartment or his office. “Mirò” was also the bridge between his earlier affinity for Alvar Aalto and Art Deco at the Venezuela Pavilion and the geometric abstraction of Lever House. Bunshaft was never a “painterly” architect and he hated the Beaux- Arts exercises he was forced to do as a student at MIT. Here, on this canvas, he was experimenting with abstraction, indulging his taste fully, in a way that was never possible in his architecture.

©Architectural Record. View All Articles.

Discovery: An Unknown Painting by Gordon Bunshaft
https://digital.bnpmedia.com/article/Discovery%3A+An+Unknown+Painting+by+Gordon+Bunshaft/3584826/647322/article.html

Menu
  • Page View
  • Contents View
  • Issue List
  • Advertisers
  • Website
  • YouTube
  • News
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Store
  • Personalized

Issue List

July 2025

June 2025

May 2025

April 2025

March 2025

February 2025

January 2025

December 2024

November 2024

October 2024

September 2024

August 2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

January 2024

December 2023

November 2023

October 2023

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

June 2023

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

October 2022

September 2022

August 2022

July 2022

June 2022

May 2022

April 2022

March 2022

February 2022

January 2022

December 2021

November 2021

October 2021

September 2021

August 2021

July 2021

June 2021

May 2021

April 2021

March 2021

February 2021

January 2021

December 2020

November 2020

October 2020

September 2020

August 2020

July 2020

June 2020

May 2020

April 2020

March 2020

February 2020

January 2020

December 2019

November 2019

October 2019

September 2019

August 2019

July 2019

June 2019

May 2019

April 2019

March 2019

February 2019

January 2019

December 2018

November 2018

October 2018

September 2018

August 2018

July 2018

June 2018

May 2018

April 2018

March 2018

February 2018

January 2018

December 2017

November 2017

October 2017

September 2017

August 2017

July 2017

June 2017

May 2017

April 2017

March 2017

February 2017

January 2017

December 2016

November 2016

October 2016

September 2016

August 2016

July 2016

June 2016

May 2016

April 2016

March 2016

February 2016

January 2016


Library