1960s Watercolor of Pier by Bunny Halligan

1960s Watercolor of Pier by Bunny Halligan

Visible artwork: 5" x 7"
With framing: 10 3/4" x 8 3/4"
Media: Watercolor
Circa: 1960s
ARTIST: Bunny Halligan aka Berniece Falling Leaves, aka Bernice Simard (1921-2015)

This is a nice watercolor of a pier. It's a rare to find paintings from this artist, as they don't show up very often ..even though she is an accomplished artist and created many pieces. And even appeared in a Steven Seagal movie.

Bunny Halligan was a wife and mother of 5 children. She began painting in October 1956 and her first juried exhibit was November 1960.

In 1967 she began painting as a professional artist and is represented by an agent. Her work is handled by Mac Blum gallery in San Francisco.

Her works are mainly watercolor and acrylics, but also paints in casein, gouache and beeswax encaustic. She is also known for batiks, rubbing and designer fabrics. She lectured on these medias as well. Additionally she worked in laminated and fused glass, plastics, block printing, jewelry, hand made shoes, copper enameling, ceramics with original formula glazes and many other crafts.

In 1967 she published her book - Sketch Book One
1966 Paintings of Bunny Halligan

She is a multi award winning artist and her pieces are held in over 150 private collections including several museums and businesses. Her works also appeared in multiple calenders including Motorola's 1963 calendar.

All the above information is from documentation held by the Tacoma Art Museum Reference Library. They were very helpful in my research and provided the documents via downloaded files.

STEVEN SEAGAL MOVIE:
"While in AZ she furthered her love of Native American spirituality and was a student and friend to Grandfather David Monongye of the Hopi. Wearing her white deerskin dress, Berniece was in the movie On Deadly Ground."

Last interesting find..while researching this piece, I unmounted it. As with many artists, she had painted this piece on a recycled canvas. There was a partial painting on the back.