Kenneth Wayne Bushnell (October 16, 1933 - October 4, 2020) was an American visual artist, who was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. He earned a BA from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1958, and then moved to Hawaii, where he received an MFA from the

University of Hawaiʻi The University of Hawaiʻi System, formally the University of Hawaiʻi and popularly known as UH, is a public college and university system that confers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through three universities, seven com ...

in 1961. He taught painting at the

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa (University of Hawaii—Mānoa, UH Mānoa, Hawai'i, or simply UH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Manoa, Mānoa, a neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii. It ...

from 1961 to 1981, and was appointed chairman of the Art Department in 1991. He married fellow artist Helen Gilbert (1922 - 8 April 2002) in 1995. Bushnell eventually earned the title of professor emeritus, living in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

. Bushnell is best known for his geometric abstract paintings, although his work also includes sculpture, light sculptures, wall reliefs, films, multimedia theater and environmental designs. His acrylic painting on cotton from 1982, ''Double Square Series No. 6'' is in the collection of the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single col ...

. It is typical of his geometric abstract paintings. For more than 25 years, Bushnell has been working on the ''Euclidean Dream Cycle'' which is built upon

equilateral triangle In geometry, an equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length. In the familiar Euclidean geometry, an equilateral triangle is also equiangular; that is, all three internal angles are also congruent to each othe ...

s and arcs of its

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

. The

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

, the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(New York City), and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

(New York City) are among the public collections holding work by Kenneth Wayne Bushnell.Wisnosky, John and Tom Klobe, ''A Tradition of Excellence'', University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, 2002, p. 30

References

* Biller, Leslie & Kenneth Bushnell, ''Bushnell'', Contemporary Art Center, Honolulu, 1977 * Ellis, George R., ''Kenneth Bushnell (Euclidian Dream Cycle: New Works by Kenneth Bushnell)'', Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2000 * Haar, Francis and Neogy, Prithwish, ''Artists of Hawaii: Nineteen Painters and Sculptors'', University of Hawaii Press, 1974, pp. 34–41 * Hartwell, Patricia L. (editor), ''Retrospective 1967-1987'',

Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts The Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts was established by the Hawaii State Legislature in 1965 to "promote, perpetuate, preserve, and encourage culture and the arts, history and the humanities as central to the quality of life of the ...

, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987, p. 22 * Morse, Morse (ed.), ''Honolulu Printmakers'', Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2003, , p. 75 * Morse, Marcia, ''Kenneth Bushnell: Spaces of Reason and Delight (The Euclidian Dream Cycle: New Work)'', Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1986 * Wisnosky, John and Tom Klobe, ''A Tradition of Excellence'', University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, 2002, pp. 28–31 * Yoshihara, Lisa A., ''Collective Visions'',

, Honolulu, 1997, p. 87.

External links

Kenneth Bushnell in AskArt.com

kennethwbushnell.com Artist Portfolio Site

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bushnell, Kenneth Wayne 1933 births 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters Artists from Hawaii 2020 deaths 20th-century American male artists