Donna N. Schuster
easel painter (1883–1953)

Donna N. Schuster (born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1883) was an American easel painter, who created work in the style of modern impressionism using the medium of oil and watercolor. She focused her work in Wisconsin then later moved to Los Angeles, California where she died in 1953.
Biography
Schuster got her education at the Art Institute of Chicago, then later attended Boston Museum School along with Edmund C. Tarbell and Frank W. Benson.
Career
In 1914 she was a student at the William Merritt Chase Summer School of Art in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Despite the brutal murder of her fellow student Helena Wood Smith, she returned to Carmel in 1916 and sent her paintings to the Woman’s Exhibition at the Oakland Art Gallery.
In 1923, Schuster built a studio-home in the hills of Griffith Park and joined the faculty of Otis Art Institute. She also had a second home and studio in Laguna Beach where she spent her summers.
She returned as an exhibitor to the Oakland Art Gallery in 1924 when Director William Clapp organized a show of regional “Impressionists,” which was so successful that it was sent to the Los Angeles Museum. Schuster expanded her horizons when she was able to join a painting tour through Belgium. She co-founded the California Art Club and Women Painters of the West
She was a member of the Group of Eight, who considered themselves modernist in their use of rich color, expressive techniques, and an emphasis on the figure.
The public source identifies “Donna N. Schuster” as easel painter (1883–1953). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Donna, Schuster and easel.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donna N. Schuster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.