Event Date(s):
March 15 - September 7, 2025
Event Location: Laguna Art Museum
Laguna Beach, CA
An Independent Brush is a celebration of the work of Donna Norine Schuster (1883-1953), a California artist who has never had a solo museum exhibition despite her talent, training and affiliations. Laguna Art Museum is proud to present a collection of Schuster’s work in this important exhibition. Schuster was one of the founders of the Group of Eight, one of the first organizations for the exhibition and sale of Modernist works in Southern California. Born into a privileged family, Schuster had the resources to continually experiment. This led to her working in a large variety of subject matter and styles unlike other artists of the time who depended on marriage and commercial art gallery representation for success and stability. The exhibition endeavors to bring light to Schuster’s artistic talent and the impressive scope of her body of work.
About the Artist
Donna Norine Schuster was born to a wealthy family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1883. She began her art training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she graduated with Honors. She then studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School with Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938) and Frank W. Benson (1862-1951). She went on a painting tour of Belgium in 1912 with William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) and won the William Merritt Chase Prize in 1912 with a painting titled Le Petit Dejeuner (Breakfast in French).
In 1913, she moved to Los Angeles and became active in the California Art Club and the Laguna Beach Art Association. She had two homes, one at 2672 Glendower Avenue, in the Griffith Park area of Los Angeles and one at 559 Thalia Street, in Laguna Beach.
In 1921 Schuster was one of the founders of the Group of Eight, one of the first organizations for exhibition and sales of Modernist works in Southern California. The group was immersed in European modernist approaches, particularly in a freer use of color. They tended to favor painting the figure and not so much the landscape. They first met in the studio of E. Roscoe Shrader (1878-1960). Among the founders were Luvena Buchanan Vysekal (1873-1954) and her husband Edouard Vysekal (1890-1939), as well as Mabel Alvarez (1891-1985), Henri De Kruif (1882-1944), Clarence Hinkle (1880-1960), and John Hubbard Rich (1876-1954).
From July 20 to August 28, 1927, the Group of Eight held an exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, in Exposition Park. Schuster submitted O’er Waiting Harp Strings, now in the Laguna Art Museum. The painting was praised for its vivid and bold color use. The title is from a hymn written by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science Church.
At 11 pm, on the evening of Monday, December 27, 1953, a brush fire erupted in her neighborhood in Griffith Park. It started when a nearby power line snapped in the high winds.
“I’ll be right out. I’m going to find my dog first.” That’s what Donna Schuster told neighbors when they tried to persuade her to leave her home after it had been ignited by the brush fire. When firemen arrived and went in, they found the 69-year-old Hollywood High School art teacher dead, apparently overcome by smoke. The dog was never located.
(From San Bernardino Sun newspaper, December 29, 1953)
