Myra Louise Bunce
{{Short description|English designer and painter}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{Use British English|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox artist
| birth_place = Birmingham, Warwickshire, England
| birth_date = 1854
| alma_mater = Birmingham School of Art
| death_date = 1919
| movement = Arts and Crafts movement
}}
Myra Louise Bunce (1854–1919) was an English designer, metalworker and painter associated with the Arts and Crafts movement and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Family
File:1981P83 The Life Class Birmingham School of Art.jpg
Bunce was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire. She was the elder daughter of John Thackray Bunce and Rebecca Ann Bunce ({{Nee|Cheesewright}}). Her younger sister Kate Bunce was also a painter.{{Cite book |last=FitzGerald |first=Claire |title=Women, Craft, and the Object: Birmingham 1880-1930 |publisher=University of Warwick, Department of History of Art |year=2016 |pages=86, 88, 126}}
Education
Bunce studied primarily at the Birmingham School of Art (1879–1891) although she also submitted pieces for examination to South Kensington School of Art.{{Cite web|date=2019-03-08|title=Green Templeton unveils display of Myra Louisa Bunce artwork on International Women's Day|url=https://www.gtc.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/myra-louisa-bunce-artwork/|access-date=2020-11-24|website=Green Templeton College|language=en-GB}} The Birmingham School of Art that provided the springboard for Bunce's career as a designer; unusually it encouraged both men and women to design and make objects in a variety of materials and thus led to her interest in metalworking.{{Cite web |title=Resource Details |url=https://www.search.connectinghistories.org.uk/Details.aspx?&ResourceID=1430&SearchType=3 |access-date=2020-11-24 |website=Connecting Histories}}
Career
File:1928P156 The Keepsake.jpg
Although Bunce worked as an artist, exhibiting pieces at the Royal Academy, the Society of Women Artists and also locally in Birmingham and Walsall, she is best known for her metalworking.{{Cite book |last=Grey |first=Sarah |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_-fkDwAAQBAJ&dq=Myra+Louise+Bunce&pg=PA55 |title=Dictionary of British Women Artists |publisher=Lutterworth Press |year=2009 |isbn=9780718840037 |pages=55–56}}{{Cite web|title=In Depth: Sophie Anderson, a cosmopolitan Victorian Artist in the Midlands|url=https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/lcahm/departments/historyofart/research/projects/map/includes/issue1/8-in-depth-sophie-anderson.aspx|website=University of Birmingham}}
In particular with her sister she created two reredos: one for St Mary's Longworth, Oxfordshire and another for St Albans Church, Birmingham. For both of these she created the hand beaten framing to hold the painted panels.{{Cite web|title=CHURCH OF ST MARY|url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1048616|website=Historic England}}{{Cite web|title=The Bunce Reredos|url=http://www.saintalban.co.uk/history/bunce-reredos/|website=The Church of England}} The use of metal rather than moulded gesso is one of the features that distinguishes Bunce's work from that of her contemporaries.
Amongst her other work is the frame that holds Kate Bunce's painting The Keepsake.
References
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Category:19th-century English painters
Category:20th-century English painters
Category:Alumni of the Birmingham School of Art
Category:Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands