Hope Shipee Bunin (1908 – 1970)

Untitled (New Bedford), 1933, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 16 x 20 inches

$6250

Hope Shippee Bunin was a multi-faceted artist, who worked as a painter, designer, and one of the country’s best-known puppeteers. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, she attended Brown University’s coordinate school, Pembroke College for Women, class of 1929. She moved to New York City and during the Great Depression, Bunin worked for the Children’s Art Project of the WPA, where she designed puppets, costumes and stage designs, and performed as a puppeteer. She met and married fellow puppeteer Morey Bunin. During World War II, the Bunins joined the USO and performed puppet shows across the South Pacific. As early as 1944, the Bunins’ performances were broadcast in New York on the newly created medium, television. After the War, they played at the Palace Theater with Danny Kaye and at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The Bunin Puppeteers joined CBS television in 1948 to produce and perform The Adventures of Lucky Pup, making its puppets among the first TV stars. Morey performed the role of the Great Foodini, while Hope played sidekick Pinhead. After three years on CBS, the Bunins moved to ABC to create The Great Foodini based on the same characters from Lucky Pup. The Bunins’ characters achieved such popularity that extensive lines of merchandise were produced, including toys, records, comic books and even chewing gum.

As a painter, it appears Hope was largely self-taught, though her surviving canvases and copious watercolor designs for various puppet projects demonstrate a strong sense of color and a deft touch. Often brightly colored with stylized figuration, Bunin’s paintings from the 1930s and 40s captured the American Scene along the East Coast and some of her later works assumed a Magic Realist quality. Her background in puppetry offers an interesting insight into the variety of artistic practices brought together during the WPA Era, both by choice and necessity. Bunin is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and an extensive collection of material related to the Bunin Puppeteers is in the collection of the Museum of the Moving Image.