Robert Clunie: Plein Air Painter of the Sierra
By Richard Coons

Robert Clunie was born June 29, 1895 in Eaglesham, Scotland. He began painting outdoors in his native Scotland at the age of 13 and was accepted to the Royal Scottish Academy. However, he cancelled his enrollment choosing instead to go to America.

In 1911, he and his older brother William boarded the S.S. California for New York. Upon their arrival to the United States they joined relatives in Saginaw, Michigan. In January 1918, wanting to escape the dark cold Michigan winters, Clunie boarded a train to Pasadena, California. It was on this return train trip back to Saginaw that he first saw, and fell in love with, the Sierra Nevada, taking the northern route over Donner Pass from San Francisco. By the end of 1918, he and his older brother drove back to California.

Arriving in Hollywood, he worked briefly at MGM painting scenics for the film The Red Lantern. When the work ended he followed friends, to the paint department of the American Beet Sugar Company in Oxnard. It was at a friday evening dance in the City of Ventura that he met his future wife, Myrtle Ireland of Santa Paula. They were married in 1919 and bought a house in Santa Paula. Clunie painted the ranches, and rolling terrain of the Ojai Valley, Santa Paula and Ventura. The Clunies became friends with other local artists, Cornelis and Jessie Arms Botke. Robert Clunie made his first trip to Lone Pine and the Sierra Nevada, Easter, 1928. He camped two blocks out of town on Lone Pine Creek. His first painting of the Sierra Nevada was of the Olivas Pack Station in Lone Pine. While on this trip, back at home in Santa Paula, the St. Francis Dam had collapsed. The Clunie home, built on high ground, was spared destruction by the floodwaters.

In the summer of 1929, Clunie returned to the Owens Valley and spent eight weeks painting in the upper reaches of Big Pine Canyon. A local packer suggested a scenic knoll between Fourth and Fifth Lakes. Clunie painted profusely, inspired by the magnificent landscape. Guests from upper Glacier Lodge stopped by his camp and were soon buying paintings from his easel. He sold all of his paintings and took orders for more. For the next thirty years or more, Clunie made his annual painting trips to upper Big Pine Canyon. He was visited by other painters including Edgar Payne who preferred the comfort of Upper Glacier Lodge to camping out on the hard ground.

In 1945, Clunie bought a small parcel of land in Bishop from a local rancher who said "I don't know what you are going to do with that swampland." By 1948, the Clunie family moved into their new residence and art studio on the north fork of Bishop Creek where they lived until they died in the 1980s. Myrtle died in 1981. Clunie continued painting until his death in 1984. He and Myrtle are buried in Santa Paula next to her parents.

Participated in numerous exhibitions. Member: California Art Club, Painters and Sculptors Club, Academy of Western Painters; Who's Who in California 1942; Artists of the American West, Southern California Artists; Who's Who in American Art 1936-1962; California Arts & Architecture Society.
Printed with permission of Coons Gallery, Bishop California

Robert Clunie: Plein-Air Painter of the Sierra
The large coffe table format book is 289 pages of full color and is beautifully written by Clunie's student, renown Sierra painter, Richard Coons.
93 color plates 317 total 10 x11 cloth bound $85

Born Free and Equal
Ansel Adams

Climbing Mt. Whitney
Peter Croft, Glen Dawson

Close Ups of the High Sierra
Norman Clyde

Death Valley to Yosemite: Frontier Mining Camps and Ghost Towns
L. Burr Belden & Mary DeDecker

Desert Summits
Andy Zdon

Favorite Dog Hikes In and Around Las Vegas
Wynne Benti & Megan Lawlor

Favorite Dog Hikes In and Around Los Angeles
Wynne Benti

Grand Canyon Treks
Harvey Butchart

High and Wild: Essays and Photographs on Wilderness Adventure
Galen Rowell

Mojave Desert Trails
Florine Lawlor

Out From Las Vegas
Florine Lawlor

The Secret Sierra: The Alpine World Above the Trees
David Gilligan

Robert Clunie: Plein Air Painter
of the Sierra
Richard Coons