George Dunbar was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1927. He studied at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and later received a BFA in painting from the Grande Chaumiere in Paris in 1953.

 

Since his first solo exhibition in Philadelphia in 1953, Dunbar’s artwork has been displayed in museums, galleries, and exhibits around the world, including a one-man show of his work titled, “George Dunbar: Elements Of Chance”, at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2016.  His public works can be viewed at such esteemed institutions as the British Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

 

Dunbar received the Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 for his contributions to art and culture in Louisiana. He was also awarded the Delgado Society's Distinguished Art Award by the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2001. In 2022 he received the Opus Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.  He has taught at 331 Art School in New Orleans, Isidore Newman School, and Tulane University.

 

Dunbar currently works and resides on Bayou Bonfouca in Slidell, Louisiana.