Eva Slater and Helen Lundeburg were not only good friends, they were two kindred spirits when it came to their art. Both artists painted primarily landscapes, still lifes and imagery from the cosmos. (The painting above is by Slater and the painting below is by Lundeburg). The two artists were both active in the Hard Edge style of the 1950's and 1960's and both were known for their sophisticated compositions along with elegant and subtle colors. They both had studied with Lorser Feitelson who had imparted his sophisticated aesthetic principles to them (along with Harry Carmean, another student of Feitelson's), so with that much in common it was inevitable that they would end being in the same circle of artists.
The photo of Lundeburg and Slater was taken Lundeburg's show at the Tobey Moss Gallery in Los Angeles in the 1980's.
Helen Lundeburg quote about Eva Slater:
“Eva Slater’s art reveals an extraordinarily sensitive and poetic personality. Obeying the promptings of her creative personality, her exquisite craftsmanship explores the marvels of the hallucinatory world, attaining the unknown – the privileged moments of mystic ecstasy. She discovers the mystery itself, and makes communicable the inexplicable. Here is the autonomous world of pure lyricism.”
Eva Slater's paintings went through a lot of changes before they were finally finished as can be seen in the earlier version of "Sun over Ocean"above with its cadmium red triangles around the sun. (The photo was printed from a slide and the image was reversed.) In many of her paintings she often would render all the triangles in one color, only to repaint them out in another color later because everything had to be "just right". When it came to her art, Eva Slater was a perfectionist, especially in the area of color and this is one reason her paintings have such an exquisite palette - a lot of time and trial and error went into the making of each work. Some of Slater's paintings took over a year to complete because of the detail and relentless repainting but she always felt the results were worth the effort.
