Lucinda Bunnen, who has contributed more than 650 photographs to the High Museum of Art over the past 32 years, alleges that she’s finished collecting. OK, at least for herself.
But when she arrived at the High one recent afternoon, glossy lipstick matching the bold red stripes of her summery dress, she had a special delivery tucked under her arm. It was to be the final addition to "The Bunnen Collection," an exhibition of more than 125 images she either collected or created, opening at the Midtown museum Sept. 7.
As a High helper surgically sliced open the package containing the newest edition of Nicholas Nixon’s “The Brown Sisters,” a series of single portraits he’s taken of his wife and her three sisters every year since 1975, the collector was as happy as a kid about to collect Halloween candy.
When the photo finally was liberated from its packaging, Bunnen, who owns one of only a handful of complete sets of the series, exclaimed, “Oh, these ladies are getting too old!”
Which was funny, coming from the ruby-red lips of an 83-year-old. But Bunnen seems to have her own secret for sidestepping Father Time.
Credit: bsanderlin@ajc.com
Credit: bsanderlin@ajc.com
“My grandchildren say they can’t keep up with me,” she said. It sounds like the cute thing you’d expect a granny of eight to proclaim, except Bunnen may indeed have rocket fuel inside those sparkly silver sneakers she sports.
In addition to the High exhibit, which highlights the creative dialogue between photographs she created that are included in the museum’s collection and those she collected and donated, Bunnen will open a show at the Atlanta Preservation Center’s Grant Park headquarters on Oct. 18. It will be drawn from her “Movers and Shakers” portraits of local leaders that she thought she completed with a book published in 1979, but then she revived the series last year.
But that’s not all: The morning of her High visit, she was asked to put together an exhibit from her 2011 trip to Cuba in time for the Rialto Center for the Arts’ season-opening concert by the Buena Vista Social Club on Oct. 5.
"Lucinda is very engaged, very passionate, very active," High photography curator Brett Abbott said of the 2013 Nexus Award recipient. The honor was bestowed by the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (which she helped found 40 years ago) for her artistry and patronage.
Giving is in her genes: After selling his half of Sears, Roebuck & Co., her grandfather started the Manhattan-based Norman Foundation, which continues to support economic and environmental justice causes. Her LUBO Fund, which focuses on arts giving and equal rights, is an offshoot.
The photographer-benefactor’s mix of creative contributions was what Abbott wanted to emphasize in the first full Bunnen Collection exhibit since 1983 (when it comprised 80 prints).
“She’s really a remarkable woman in the way that she’s worn several hats and done it very gracefully,” the curator said. “She identifies as an artist, but she’s also been an incredibly important philanthropist, a visionary collector and a supporter of other artists’ work.”
That hasn’t changed. For instance, for “The Bunnen Collection,” Abbott planned to include at least 10 of her photographs alongside 20th century masters such as Ansel Adams, Clarence John Laughlin, Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman. But then she kept thinking of other photographers she wanted to include, such as Atlantan Ilia Varcev (“I thought it would be important for him”). She lobbied the curator to take out photos she created as needed to make room for the late additions.
Abbott wanted to accommodate her, while faced with the usual curator dilemma of too much art for too little wall space. Plus, one of his missions was to show how she picked up on — and moved through — prevailing trends as photography grew from its infancy as an art form.
The Bunnen Collection emphasizes modernist American pictures from the 20th century, with a strong representation of Southern work. The title of the 1983 High exhibit, “Subjective Vision,” hints at the strong point of view she sought as a collector — then and now.
In her own work, she prefers to say that she “makes a picture” instead of “takes a picture,” emphasizing the role of the artist before and after the shutter blinks.
Bunnen’s diverse body of work includes landscapes (mainly trees), surreal compositions, portraits, nudes, building facades and travelogues.
Beyond the inherent strength of the imagery — “It holds up with the best of the best,” Abbott said — a through line isn’t obvious to the naked eye. But she sees a connecting thread.
“I find things that other people don’t see,” she said, sounding more surprised at her good fortune than boastful.
She had that independent creative streak even in 1970 when, already in her 40s yet inspired by a filmmaker group she had fallen in with, she enrolled in the Atlanta College of Art’s first photography course.
Her teacher advised Bunnen, who was regularly visiting New York to help after her mother suffered a stroke, that she needed to seek out what other photographers were doing.
“Why would I do that?” she responded. “Why can’t I be inventive on my own?’”
But Bunnen did begin to take note, meeting Lee Witkin of New York’s Witkin Gallery that year. He encouraged her to collect and to champion the medium back home in Atlanta.
She did both, and she admitted it was hard in the beginning not to want to imitate the masters she was collecting and sometimes meeting.
“I would come back from New York with all these images in my head and (the thought), ‘I like that, I’m going to do that,’ ” she recalled. “But you can’t. You have to do what you do. I love (Memphis photographer) William Eggleston’s work, and it looks so simple, like you ought to be able to walk out in the street and do exactly what he did. But it’s not there for me.”
She said making personal connections with other photographers and wanting to support their artistry fueled strong gut decisions to collect their work.
Though she still makes purchases for the High — these days, images usually presented by Abbott for her consideration — she insists, resolutely if not persuasively, that she otherwise has stopped buying.
“I have no more room under beds, and if I have no place to put it, maybe that’s the time to stop,” she said, then paused.
“I mean if it’s little and if I love it,” she then added, “maybe I can squeeze it in.”
Exhibits preview
“The Bunnen Collection”
Opening Sept. 7. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays (until 8 p.m. Thursdays), noon-5 p.m. Sundays. $19.50; $16.50, students and seniors; $12, ages 6-17; free, 5 and younger. Through Feb. 2. High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4200, www.high.org.
“Lucinda Bunnen: Georgia Portraits”
Opening Oct. 18. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays (and by appointment). Free. Through Dec. 13. Atlanta Preservation Center, L.P. Grant Mansion, 327 St Paul Ave. S.E., Atlanta. 404-668-3353, ext. 11, www.atlantapreservationcenter.com.
Both exhibits are part of the extensive Atlanta Celebrates Photography festival. Details: www.acpinfo.org.
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