Rupert Charles Wolston Bunny was born in Inkerman Street, St. Kilda in1864 in a house called 'Eckerberg' named after his German mother's home in Frankfurt-an-Oder. As a child Bunny became familiar, through his father, with the languages, literature, gods and goddesses of classical times. Education and liking confirmed this taste.
The Forefunners c 1894, was considered the most important aquisition for the City of St Kilda and was the primary item insured when it was largely destroyed in the Town Hall fire in 1991. The insurance funds became the source for the Rupert Bunny Foundation in 2005 which aims to support comtemporary visual artists.
Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Monday 26 May 1947, page 5 Trove Newspaper
Rupert Bunny Was Doyen Of Australian Painters
By CLIVE TURNBULL
The death of Rupert Bunny, although at the age of 82, will come as a shock to all who knew him, for his alert and wide-ranging mind re-mained as keen as ever, and he was painting up to the time he became ill quite recently. DOYEN of Australian painters, he had won many international honors: and only last year he was paid the greatest honor possible to bestow locally by the holding of a retrospective exhibition of his work at the National Gallery, at which the artist himself was present to receive the good wishes of his admirers.
An artist for 60 years, Bunny was a contemporary of such men as Streeton and Conder, and, al-though a large part of his life was spent in Paris, he maintained a constant connection with Australia. In his last period of resi-dence here he painted many of those landscapes of scenes remem-bered in the south of France by which he is perhaps best known to picture buyers today. In many ways, he was the most eminent of Australia's artists. His exquisite taste, splendid sense of color and an appreciation of form which placed him in the line of Puvis de Chavannes and Ford Madox Brown all marked him as an heir to the great traditions of the past, an artist who, to figure painting, landscape, or the scenes from the Greek myths which he loved, brought an unfailing vision of beauty which was peculiarly his own.
SON OF JUDGE Third son of Judge Bunny, a well-known figure in Melbourne's early legal world, Rupert Charles Wolston Bunny was born at St. Kilda on September 29, 1864. He was educated at the Alma Road Grammar School. St. Kilda, the Hutchins School, Hobart, and at other places, including, for a time, Melbourne University. An early ambition to become an actor was not encouraged by his father. Eventually he became an art student at the Melbourne Gallery under Folingsby.
As a young man he went to London and to Paris, studying under Jean Paul Laurens. Abroad, Bunny was the first Aus-tralian artist to receive a Euro-pean award honorable mention for "The Tritons," hung at the Old Salon in 1890. A long series of European suc-cesses followed. Many works by Bunny have been bought by the French Government. He is represented In the Luxembourg and in the Palace of the Senate, and in galleries in the United States and other countries. He exhibited frequently at the Royal Acacemy and in the New Salon, was a member of the Inter-national Society of Painters and a Societaire of the Autumn Salon, Paris.
FAME GREW His fame at home grew steadily, if belatedly. The magnificent retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery last year made plain the full measure of his achievements. It is not only as a painter that Rupert Bunny will be remembered, however; he was a man of unusual personal distinction and charm. His talents were equalled by his modesty and by his wide range of interests — in later years he composed much music. His wife, a daughter of Colonel Morel, died some years ago in France — she is represented in one of his finest portraits. Latterly the artist had lived alone in a flat in South Yarra, composing and painting vigorously. It was one of his regrets that no opportunity was ever given him in his own country to exe-cute the murals which were his greatest interest, and that modern conditions confined him to comparatively small works when he longed for great pictures for great rooms. Nevertheless, he leaves a mag-nificent legacy. Much of his work is in his private ownership, but the National Gallery may count itself fortunate in the pos-session of such paintings as "Sea Idylls" and "Endormies," from his earlier period, and a number of later works from the retrospective exhibition, as well as his portrait of his wife and a self-portrait.
With Bunny's death an era ends. All those who, differing widely in style belonged to his generation have gone — Streeton, Conder, Withers, Phillips Fox, Ramsay, Longstaff, Lambert. He was the last and alone, and there will not be lacking people to say the greatest of them all. Mr Bunny was cremated priv-ately at Springvale Crematorium today, after a service conducted by the Rev. H. Hollis. He was a widower with no children. A. A. Sleight Pty. Ltd. had charge of the funeral arrangements.
https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/rupert-bunnys-mythologies/ This link provides details of Ropert Bunny's work and its inspiration.