GEORGE DUNBAR
RECEPTION NOVEMBER 1 ST 6-9
INFINITUM
Callan Contemporary is honored to present George Dunbar: Infinitum, an intimate and historic exhibition showcasing paintings and sculpture selected from the personal collection of acclaimed artist George Dunbar, who passed away last year. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience works that have, until now, remained at the artist's secluded residence and studio on Bayou Bonfouca, Louisiana.
The exhibition spans multiple decades of Dunbar's prolific career and includes his signature clay reliefs and iconic gold and palladium leaf compositions. These pieces reflect the career path of an artist who, while deeply connected to the development of American abstract art, forged a singular vision of non-representational art inspired by the ever-changing landscapes of South Louisiana.
Dunbar's artistic career began after his time in the Navy during World War II. He attended Temple University's Tyler School of Art and Architecture and regularly made trips to New York at the height of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950's, where he was influenced by the gestural brushwork, spontaneity, and the physicality of the painting process itself from leading figures of the New York school: Jackson Pollack, Willem De Kooning, and Franz Kline.
Dunbar's deep love of Louisiana drew him home again in the mid-1950s. He became a leading figure in contemporary Southern art and was one of seven artists that founded The Orleans Gallery, the first Southern gallery to exhibit and promote the new abstract art movement happening in New York. His contributions as an artist and founding member of the Orleans Gallery helped advance an awareness of contemporary art in the South.
Reflecting on Dunbar’s legacy, the art critic John Yau wrote: “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.”
With works held in major museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the British Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, George Dunbar is recognized as one of the South’s most important artists of his generation and has been honored with career surveys such as Dunbar: Mining the Surfaces (New Orleans Museum of Art, 1997), George Dunbar Southern Masters Series (Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2007) and George Dunbar: Elements of Chance (New Orleans Museum of Art, 2016-2017).
RECEPTION: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST 6–9 PM
EXHIBITION DATES: NOVEMBER 1ST - DECEMBER 20TH, 2025
Front cover: Coin Du Lestin, c. 1999
Red gold over red, black and mauve clay with incised lines, 80" x 73"
GEORGE DUNBAR at his studio on Bayou Bonfouca, 1997
Photography by Glade Bilby II
Rag Collage, 1984, cloth and acrylic on canvas, 50" x 108"
Neshoba, Surge Series, 2023
Palladium leaf over black and pale blue-green clay with incised lines, 88" x 81"
Coin Du Lestin in Black and Gray, 2008
black and gray-green clay with incised lines, 60" x 48"
