Jorge Dunn

Jorge Dunn

Jorge Dunn

Painter
Brief info

For decades, Dunn had labored humbly outside Paitilla's Arrocha Pharmacy and had sold his canvas works in other well-trafficked areas in the capital and the old Canal Zone. Dunn was the son of a gifted West Indian family that had immigrated to the isthmus at the beginning of the twentieth century. His father was a Jamaican shoe designer, and his brother Eugenio (1917-1999) was also a well-known painter. Several other members of the Dunn clan have since gone on to become accomplished artists. Jorge himself had an engaging personality and was blessed with a variety of conspicuous talents. He often interrupted interviews to sing Perry Como hits and Cuban boleros from the mid-twentieth century, which he had performed, as a younger man, in the bars and clubs along J Street.

Dunn (1924-2007) had learned to paint through his own efforts, and while he never fully gained the cultural elite's recognition, he did attract hundreds of more ordinary collectors who avidly purchased his cadenced renditions of Panama's tinanjas, "dancing bottles," sailboats, fish, and musical instruments, as well as his eye-catching visions of El Chorillo and the Interior.

1 Comment

  • Kim Carter Baird

    I have a couple of Jorge’s & Eugenio’s paintings, passed on to me from my parents. They purchased these paintings while we lived in the Canal Zone.

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