BUNNY, Rupert

‘Before the Storm’ or, ‘Avant. l’orage’ was also called ‘The Forerunners’. The 130 x 300cm oil on canvas, was first exhibited in Paris at the old salon of 1894. Then in London at the Royal Academy and later in Bendigo for the Victorian Gold Jubilee of 1901. It was given to St.Kilda Council in 1948 in memory of Bunny’s father, Judge Frederick Brice Bunny who was chairman of the Borough of St.Kilda in 1864, the year and place where Rupert Bunny was born. Tragically the painting was irreparably damaged in a fire at the St.Kilda Town Hall on 8th april 1991. The charred canvas was stabilised by conservationists to prevent further deterioration and the remainder of the AUD$ 525,000. insurance settlement was used to finance a perpetual trust for the sponsorship of selected contemporary artists.

Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny was born in St. Kilda, Victoria on 29th September 1864. His parents encouraged a classical taste for music and the visual arts amongst Melbourne’s elite. He joined the National Gallery of Victoria’s School of Design in 1881, attended St. John’s Wood Art School London in 1884 and moved to Paris in 1886, where he enjoyed the glamorous social life of ‘la belle epoque’.

In Europe, Bunny was Australia’s most celebrated artist, attracting influential patrons including Alfred Felton. In 1895 he married Jeanne Morel and following her death in 1933, Bunny returned to Melbourne. Living modestly in dusty, ill-furnished rooms above a newsagency in Toorak Road, South Yarra, he continued to paint and teach, ‘sharing his capacity for illustration and his delicious facility as a brushman’, until his death on 25th May 1947.