William Herbert (Buck) Dunton (American, 1878-1936) The Water Hole

William Herbert (Buck) Dunton (American, 1878-1936)

The Water Hole
Signed "W. Herbert Dunton/N.M." l.l., titled on a typewritten gummed label affixed to the stretcher.
Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in. (61.0 x 91.5 cm), framed.
Condition: Lined, vertical line of retouch to the right-hand side, craquelure with scattered paint losses.

Provenance: Purchased by Eugene Greuenwald of Iowa in the late 1920s, likely while on a family road trip out West; then by family descent.

N.B. Although he was born in Maine, Dunton is associated with the Taos School in New Mexico. As a boy he explored the Maine woods around Augusta, alternately hunting and sketching. The keen linear observations he drew of the natural world from his Maine childhood made him a natural illustrator, and by age 16 he had sold several of his drawings to publications in Boston. His family, seeing his obvious talent for drawing wildlife in its natural habitat, encouraged his art. He eventually studied in both Boston and New York. It was his friendship with Ernest Blumenschein that drew him to the Southwest.

Many of his contemporaries in Taos were interested in depicting the life and landscapes of the indigenous people, but Dunton was more enamored with the life of the cowboy. His illustrations, especially for Zane Grey novels, made his reputation, but in Taos his focus was largely on painting, and he accepted few illustration commissions. If the focus of his subject matter differed from his local colleagues, his goals did not. At the beginning of the 20th century artists were keenly aware of the changing world around them, and sought to capture and document the ways of life that seemed to be vanishing before their eyes. Dunton, an avid outdoorsman since his childhood, made it part of his mission to depict the ways of cowboy life, as well as the vanishing herds of antelope and bison.

This work is being sold to benefit the International House of Rhode Island in Providence.