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

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. He earned a BA from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

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

University of Hawaiʻi The University of Hawaiʻi System is a public college and university system in Hawaii. The system confers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through three universities, seven community colleges, an employment training center, ...

in 1961. He taught painting at the

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...

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 List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

. 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, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...

. 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 An equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length, and all three angles are equal. Because of these properties, the equilateral triangle is a regular polygon, occasionally known as the regular triangle. It is the ...

s and arcs of its

altitude Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometr ...

. The

Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

, the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, 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 (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(New York City), and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

(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 Hawaii ( ; ) is an island state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only state not on the North American mainland, th ...

, 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