Roger Kunst - Charcoal on Paper - Church in Mitla, Mexico

Roger Kunst - Charcoal on Paper - Church of San Pablo in Mitla, Mexico.  25.5 x 31 inches framed.

Roger Kuntz (1926 - 1975) Born: San Antonio, TX; Studied: Pomona College (California), Claremont Graduate School (California). Roger Kuntz was a student of Henry Lee McFee and began exhibiting while still a student. Although he is primarily remembered for his large oil paintings, Kuntz did spontaneous watercolors while on location, that were used as reference for larger works. 

In 1954 Kuntz was appointed to the teaching staff of Scripps College in Claremont California, upon the recommendation of the noted California artist Millard Sheets, where he remained for eight years. During this time the Felix Landau Gallery in Los Angeles represented him and he had one-artist shows in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco and participated in major national group exhibitions, such as the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1953 and the III Bienal de São Paulo.

In 1956, Kuntz took a year sabbatical upon receiving the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant for Fine Arts-Painting.  Among the works completed during the fellowship were the interior series paintings, which were semi-abstracted studies of his living room, often featuring his wife Margaret and the family dog, a standard poodle received from Millard Sheets.

Kuntz began his most critically acclaimed series of paintings in 1959: the freeway series; a study of abstract values in the conventional images of the Los Angeles highways, bridges, and road signs that made up the city’s growing intrastate transportation system.  The October 19, 1962 issue of Life magazine included an article about leading California artists featuring: Stanton Macdonald-Wright, John McLaughlin, Billy Al Bengston, and Roger Kuntz, who was photographed for the article standing on the beach in front of two of his freeway series paintings.  The following year Kuntz exhibited his bathtub series of paintings and bronze sculptures, which led critics to identify him as Southern California’s response to the Bay Area Figurative artists.

Kuntz moved from Claremont to Laguna Beach in 1963 where he taught painting at the newly established Laguna Beach School of Art and Design.