GEORGE DUNBAR: ENVISIONING ABSTRACTION 1950s– 2023
September 24th - October 31st, 2026
Reception: Saturday, October 3rd, 6-9 pm
This exhibition is co-curated with Doyle Gertjejansen.
GEORGE DUNBAR
ENVISIONING ABSTRACTION 1950s– 2023
Reception: Saturday, October 3rd 6-9, 2026
GEORGE DUNBAR (1927-2024)
GEORGE DUNBAR: ENVISIONING ABSTRACTION 1950S– 2023
Callan Contemporary is pleased to present George Dunbar: Envisioning Abstraction 1950s–2023, an exhibition spanning more than seven decades of George Dunbar’s sustained and evolving investigation of abstraction. Bringing together painting, collage, sculpture, clay, and precious metal leaf works, the exhibition situates Dunbar within the broader history of postwar American abstraction, revealing a practice distinguished by its persistent experimentation with gesture, structure, material, light, and color.
Dunbar’s work resists a linear progression from gestural to geometric abstraction. Throughout his career, spontaneity and order, accident and intention, and organic form and geometry coexist within compositions that are at once rigorously structured and physically expressive. His early paintings and collages emerged during a formative period in American art, when Abstract Expressionism was reshaping the possibilities of painting.
After studying at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia and subsequently in Paris, Dunbar spent time in New York in the early 1950s, encountering the artists and ideas of the New York School. These formative experiences established an expansive understanding of abstraction that he would continually test and redefine over the course of his career.
Material became central to this inquiry. Clay, paper, linen, and precious metal leaf function as active elements within Dunbar’s compositions. Gold, silver, and palladium transform the surface through their interaction with light, while incision, abrasion, texture, and relief introduce a tactile dimension to works that move freely between painting and sculpture. As writer and critic John Yau observes, “Rather than privileging physical form over color and light or vice versa, Dunbar wanted both to exist in a single work.”
Dunbar’s engagement with South Louisiana further expanded the possibilities of his abstract language. Rather than depicting landscape literally, he translated its colors, rhythms, organic forms, textures, and shifting light into formal and material relationships. As Yau notes, “Working abstractly and figuratively, he brought architecture and nature into his work.” Place, in Dunbar’s practice, is not a fixed subject but an experience absorbed into the work itself—one element within a broader investigation of perception, memory, nature, and material.
Across seven decades, Dunbar repeatedly reconsidered what abstraction could be: gestural and geometric, accidental and deliberate, luminous and tactile, planar and sculptural. George Dunbar: Envisioning Abstraction 1950s–2023 highlights a career defined not by stylistic uniformity, but by sustained exploration and renewal. His work occupies a distinctive position within American abstraction, connecting the international language of modernism with an expansive and deeply personal understanding of material, place, and perception.
“I think it is time we recognize the significance of Dunbar’s engagement with art and with his contemporaries, as it addresses one crisis that art is perpetually undergoing: why is it being made and what should its mission be? By working across mediums, as well as being both geometric and figurative elements, Dunbar challenged orthodoxies regarding art, style, and the need to be consistent and work one way or another. Far from being idiosyncratic or regional in his choices, Dunbar was central in the questions he asked.”
- JOHN YAU
GEORGE DUNBAR
George Dunbar
Action Painting Series No. 18, 2011
acrylic and paper collage on canvas
20h x 30w in
George Dunbar
Red V, 2024
Red, yellow and mauve acrylic on cloth mounted on panel
12.50h x 16.50w in
George Dunbar
Early Action Collage, 1961
acrylic and paper collage mounted on board
12h x 14w in
George Dunbar
Deity XX 4/5, 2023
Polished and lacquered, cast bronze mounted on granite base
23h x 22w x 10d in
George Dunbar
Action Painting No. 14
Acrylic on canvas mounted on canvas
22h x 28w in
Framed: 21.75h x 27.50w in
George Dunbar
Blocked Figurative, c. 1960
Charcoal on paper
13.50h x 9w in
Framed: 19h x 13w in
George Dunbar
Untitled Sketch, c.1950-60
Ink, paint, pastel, graphite collage on drafting paper
30h x 24w in
Framed: 31h x 24w in
George Dunbar
Untitled, 1960
Acrylic on paper collage mounted on board
8h x 12.50w in
Framed: 7.25h x 11.75w in
George Dunbar
Torismond, 1992
Collage and acrylic on paper mounted on board
11h x 16w in
Framed: 18h x 22w in
George Dunbar
Coin du Lestin Rubbing, 2006
Graphite rubbing on parchment paper
25.50h x 42w in
Framed: 31h x 48w in
George Dunbar
Malako-Marshgrass Series, 2023
Dark gray clay and Asian leaf over die keen
37h x 49w in
George Dunbar
Action Study in Red and Peach, 2023
Paper collage with acrylic and Ink on panel
15h x 16w in
George Dunbar
Action Study-Inverted Triangle, 2023
Paper collage with acrylic and Ink on panel
29h x 22.50w in
George Dunbar
Action Collage X, 2024
paper collage, acrylic, india ink string drawing on panel
21.50h x 23w in
Framed: 28h x 29w in
George Dunbar
Mixed Media Collage, 2024
Clay, leaf and India ink string drawing in panel
12.50h x 9.50w in
George Dunbar
Twelfth Night, 1949
Dry point on copper plate
6.50h x 4.50w in
Framed: 14.75h x 12w in
George Dunbar
Action Painting Series No. 18, 2011
Acrylic and paper collage on canvas
20h x 30w in
George Dunbar
Deity XX 4/5, 2023
Polished and lacquered, cast bronze mounted on granite base
23h x 22w x 10d in
George Dunbar
Early Action Collage, 1961
acrylic and paper collage mounted on board
12h x 14w in
George Dunbar
Twelfth Night, 1949
Dry point on copper plate
6.50h x 4.50w in
Framed: 14.75h x 12w in
George Dunbar
Figure On Horseback, c. 1950
Print, mixed media
8h x 10.25w in
Framed: 13h x 14.50w in
George Dunbar
Blocked Figurative, c. 1960
Charcoal on paper
13.50h x 9w in
Framed: 19h x 13w in
George Dunbar
Untitled, 1960
Acrylic on paper collage mounted on board
8h x 12.50w in
Framed: 7.25h x 11.75w in
George Dunbar
Untitled Sketch
noma 1950-60
acrylic, ink and graphite on graph paper, c.1950-60
Ink, paint, pastel, graphite collage on drafting paper
30h x 24w in
Framed: 31h x 24w in
George Dunbar
Action Painting No. 14
Acrylic on canvas
22h x 28w in
Framed: 21.75h x 27.50w in
George Dunbar
Torismond, 1992
Collage and acrylic on paper mounted on board
11h x 16w in
Framed: 18h x 22w in
George Dunbar
Coin du Lestin Rubbing
Graphite rubbing on parchment paper
25.50h x 42w in
Framed: 31h x 48w in
George Dunbar
Red V, 2024
Red, yellow and mauve acrylic on cloth mounted on panel
12.50h x 16.50w in
George Dunbar
Action Study-Inverted Triangle, 2023
Paper collage with acrylic and Ink on panel
29h x 22.50w in
George Dunbar
Action Study in Red and Peach, 2023
Paper collage with acrylic and Ink on panel
15h x 16w in
George Dunbar
Action In Taupe With Circles, 2024
India ink, acrylic and paper on panel
18h x 24w in
George Dunbar
Action Collage X, 2024
Paper collage, acrylic, india ink string drawing on panel
21.50h x 23w in
Framed: 28h x 29w in
George Dunbar
Mixed Media Collage, 2024
Clay, leaf and India ink string drawing in panel
12.50h x 9.50w in
