In 2009 I wrote about the dramatic wartime experiences of Gilbert Bundy, the talented illustrator whose light and elegant watercolors appeared in most of the top magazines of his day.
Bundy's style was deceptively free and loose, but his talent was recognized and highly respected by his peers. He was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.
In my previous post about Bundy, I remarked that his focus on feminine beauty and his sensitive, delicate style (note his treatment of the flowers in the detail below) made him ill suited to be a combat artist in the South Pacific during World War II, yet that's what he volunteered to do.
I'm returning to Bundy today because I recently had the great pleasure of speaking with Bundy's daughter who shared more details about his dramatic story. Here is Bundy's own account of his disastrous landing with the marines on the Pacific island of Tarawa. Many have reported on his tragedy, but this is what Bundy typed up after he got home. "Arms, legs and hands, literally flew in every direction. All were killed except me."
When a U.S. patrol boat encountered Bundy floating in shark infested waters, the sailors challenged him with sports questions to test whether he was truly an American. Because Bundy wasn't a sports fan, he didn't know the correct answers and was nearly shot trying to return to his own side.
For me, the most revelatory line in his harrowing account was, "I was given another chance next day at picture making." Bundy took that opportunity and continued to work. That's an artist.
Even though Bundy returned to work, his experience had changed him. He was asked to participate in a reconnaissance flight to take photographs of the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Although he didn't know the military's plans for the city, he wanted no part of that mission and refused to go.
After the war Bundy returned to his New York apartment where he struggled to rebuild a life painting his breezy, carefree illustrations. Here he is with his wife and daughter.
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| Bundy sketching his daughter at home, circa 1947 |
Bundy painted a large mural of his wife, daughter and their beloved dog going for a walk in New York. This was obviously the domestic life he yearned for...
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| The dog in front of the mural was named Emmett Kelly. |
... but it eluded his grasp. Bundy began drinking heavily. His daughter recalled hearing him weeping behind closed doors and threatening to commit suicide. One day he held her close and said, "War is never worth it." His marriage fell apart. He moved out and his wife painted over his mural, sealing that chapter forever.
Bundy would have no more "chances at picture making." On the the anniversary of his ordeal at Tarawa he hung himself and rejoined his fallen comrades.
21 comments:
Well, that's horrible.
It is a peculiar thing how strong experience opens up brand new connections in the mind, connections which then cannot be closed back down again. Sometimes it is a beautiful thing. In the case of trauma, though, the flung-wide portals lead to dark places and nightmares of existence; addictions, anxiety, ptsd, perversions, obsessions, reactive behavior, and so on.
Luckily, it seems like psilocybin research will have efficacy in this area.
In the meantime, we should remember that the eyes are indeed the windows to the soul, and they need to be protected. Because nothing can be unseen.
On a lighter note the Carol Day/David Wright book has just gone to the printers: https://carol-day.com/the-book.cfm?fbclid=IwAR1liJK8BH-bBIg8UKe_uVe3g0DqRrq-dE9thIhmi1yvqIX9kKGuegKfK0c
Sad.
Suicide is a terrible thing, for a person to be in so much pain that they see no hope. Does being an artist open one’s soul to such contemplations, there seems to be so many of them that have chosen this route.
What a sad story. I always loved Bundy's work but I didn't know the background.
Kev Ferrara - I've also heard about that Carol Day book. Looking forward to picking up a copy.
David - any chance you might post about Day's work one day?
Thank you for this, David. I am so grateful to have found you and for you to hear our story and share it for his legacy.
After going through all that he just wanted to return to picture making. How many artists today would do the same?
JSL
The stark contrast between Gilbert Bundy's nuanced, buoyant, character-rich watercolor illustrations and his tragic exit makes this all the more poignant.
Not an artist I'd heard much of before, but one whose work I'd seen over the years and casually admired for his facile ease with figure-work. Never researched him in depth. My loss, definitely.
Thanks for showcasing him again, David.
Little dirty laundry. In your last blogpost about him, you said "Bundy fell in love with the right girl, married her and had a baby daughter."
But wasn't one of the going theories that Bundy killed himself because his wife was getting frisky with Flagg? The way Flagg talks about her in Roses and Buckshot makes the infidelity seem likely, even if not definitive proof about why he ended things. That's also what Art Wood wrote about it, after having talked to Flagg about Bundy's wife himself.
War is hell, but I think having your wife ditch you and start banging a superior draftsman would lead to much more existential dread than seeing a bunch of soldiers get mercked. Marrying a model with a past is never a good idea. ( If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, etc.)
Richard-- No dirty laundry here. Bundy had a brief marriage with a beautiful model named Georgia McDonald. Georgia divorced her first husband, a newspaperman, to become a model for that old hound Flagg ("long before she married Bundy" according to Flagg) and then for Bundy and later LaGatta as well. She was reputed to be stylish and "super cool," but she quickly divorced Bundy (before he went to war) posing in her swimsuit for all the society pages, and explaining that she wanted to "become a social worker." Bundy later married "the right girl," named Grey, and had his daughter with her.
In my previous blogpost about Bundy, I included a photo from Esquire magazine of Bundy in a tuxedo out on the town in the 1930s with a young chanteuse. It seems that when he was a hot young cartoonist for the hugely popular new Esquire magazine, he led an active social life. Marrying the most gorgeous model in town must've seemed like a good idea. I can't testify to the nature of the relationship between Georgia and the notorious Flagg, but by the time Bundy married Georgia I believe Flagg was already busy molesting another of his models, Ilse Hoffman.
As far as I know, Flagg never came near Bundy's new family. Bundy was close friends with fellow watercolorist John Gannam, as well as Martha Sawyers, Arthur William Brown and a handful of other respected, stable illustrators in real relationships-- not Flagg. Bundy's daughter told me several stories about what a devoted family man he was, how he brought her to his studio to learn to paint, and how he praised her young efforts, and how much he and his wife Grey enjoyed dining together.
Interesting. Perhaps Art Wood was mistaken about which wife Flagg was talking about —
“At the time I was not really familiar with Bundy, but I later
acquainted myself with his work and got to
know the talented young artist who took his
own life, perhaps as a result of Flagg's infatua-
tion with his wife.”
correction: "arms, legs and heads"
Thanks for this blog.
Kev Ferrara-- Yes, there's no question that modern pharmaceuticals could've rescued a lot of tortured souls and wrecked lives. I note that there are many veterans today suffering from PTSD who refuse to take those pharmaceuticals, perhaps because their illness has made them paranoid or distorted their judgment.
The interesting question for this blog is how those pharmaceuticals would affect an artist's work? If a medication could've made Beethoven a happy guy, what would become of his music? And would it be worth it?
Anonymous-- Good questions. One thing seems certain: suicide or early death certainly increases the market value of an artist's work. People seem to love-- from a safe distance-- the passion and emotions that such drastic steps suggest.
Richard-- My, how very helpful of Art Wood to publish that rumor. Art was an interesting case; as a cartoonist he had zero artistic ability, but he was the most driven art collector I've ever met. His obsession drove him to dark places, where he took advantage of the artists he loved and manipulated their widows to add to his stockpile. He liked to rub up against genuine artists as much as he could, and portray himself as an insider, hence his gossip about the back story behind Bundy's first marriage.
I received my own taste of Art's hypnotic technique. When I visited his home, someone mentioned that I'd drawn a syndicated strip in my youth. The next day I received a well honed, flattering letter from Art begging for an original and gushing about how important it would be for "the collection," which would one day be a nonprofit museum. Mind you, he'd never seen my drawing and didn't know or care that the strip was absolute crap. He just knew that he had to own one. Later he sold his thousands of originals to the Library of Congress for a bundle of money.
The interesting question for this blog is how those pharmaceuticals would affect an artist's work? If a medication could've made Beethoven a happy guy, what would become of his music? And would it be worth it?
It is quite obvious to me that Hallmark Inc. is the only place for a poet unafflicted with hypersensitivity, melancholia, and wide variances in mood. Yet, since we are in the middle of both a mental health crisis and a crisis in the arts, it would seem clear that mental problems and good art have no necessary causal connection.
So it must be the ability to hold it together creatively, intellectually, and emotionally while still being subject to the tortures of a profoundly feeling soul that separates the artist from the basket case.
We are who we are, even when we are broken. This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to repair ourselves. But do we even know how to? Or when to? I assume we all know people prescribed all sorts of stuff for run-of-the-mill life emotions. I knew a woman who didn't want to feel the pain of her mother's death. And so was offered one of these antidepression meds. The drug apparently blunted her emotions too much: she stopped caring altogether, walked out on her children and husband and disappeared.
Given the recent revelation that the theory of 'chemical imbalance' in the brain was without foundation and that it is not actually known how most psychoactive pharmaceuticals work, one would expect a kind of national conversation on the subject. Plus the nightmares so many go through trying to get off these black box meds. But no.
The newfound relationship between gut dysfunction and mood problems is another fascinating new area of research on this topic. Also related to autoimmune disorders.
All to say, even though many are truly helped by today's meds, I still can't shake the feeling that the PR is far ahead of the reality, and we are still coming out of the dark ages, barber's leeches and all.
That opening drawing is a beauty.
I had an uncle who saw a battleship going down after catching fire with men diving into shark infested waters to avoid the fire with the sharks were at them. I think it was the battle of Midway. It was so long ago he told me that story. My uncle was a good man and suffered mightily with the bottle but wasn't one to get angry.
The amount of soldiers and civilians who were profoundly damaged by WWII was incredible.
It was understood that a lot of returning soldiers weren’t the same as they left and one had to be careful around them. The Gilbert Bundy story is rough. It would be a mistake to judge any of them. Too bad more couldn’t have been done to understand and help them.
There were also a lot men without jobs for a couple years after WWII and they spent a lot of time drinking in bars before they were put to work in jobs programs. That time gave birth to a lot of alcoholism in the 1950s. Soldiers who were shell shocked alcoholics were romanticized by Kerouac in his train travels across America. I remember in the late 1950s adults hanging out in small clusters playing Bridge with a cart of mixers and liquor bottles at hand in their suburban backyards, while their kids played games nearby. The war left America disjointed in ways nobody really wanted to deal with.
Everything I post in the other thread is disappearing. Posting here to see if the bug happens here also.
Always appreciate your posts, David.
You may have covered this already, but I recall reading that Pruett Carter, not only committed suicide, but I think also killed his wife and son. He was a very successful illustrator, and his suicide was never explained, that I know of. I don't think it was war related. Does anyone have more information on this? He seemed to have a stable life, at least on the surface.
I recall reading that Pruett Carter, not only committed suicide, but I think also killed his wife and son. He was a very successful illustrator, and his suicide was never explained, that I know of. I don't think it was war related. Does anyone have more information on this?
The rather gruesome story one hears is that Pruett Carter was diagnosed with a severe and debilitating neurodegenerative disorder. And realizing that he would not be able to work or even care for himself going forward, let alone provide for his wife and young son, he lost his mind and preemptively put his clan and himself out of their future misery.
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