Egg tempera on gessoed board by Gail Bunting depicting a green heron moving through the large leaves and white blossoms of a stand of mayapple plants with mossy ground underfoot.

Unlike Bunting’s smaller-format work, paintings of this scale were done exclusively by commission. This painting’s owner had a relationship with Gail which gave him the license to make special commission requests for paintings far larger than she would typically undertake on her own.

Signed “GB” in the lower right.

Gessoed panel mounted onto mat board and enclosed, without glass, in a shallow shadow box frame roughly ⅛” deep and which Bunting chose for the piece, herself. Dated by the framer on reverse “5/06,” likely soon after the painting’s completion.

Gail Bunting (1947-2018). Self-taught, and preferring to call herself a naturalist who painted rather than an artist, Bunting was raised in the Hudson Valley, where her mother taught her a love of woodland flowers and her father a tender regard for all small creatures — evident throughout her work. She worked in egg tempera on gessoed board, a slow, exacting medium suited to her close observation of plant and animal detail. Her work was featured on the cover of the April 2001 issue of New York State Conservationist. She died in November 2018.

All of the works I’ve had in the shop have come from a single collector who—at one time—owned more than eighty. I’m honored to have been entrusted with what remains of his collection of works by our friend Gail Bunting.

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