Eleanor Merriam Lukits - The Guitar Player - circa 1940s - Oil Pastel on Board P2654

Signing herself E Merriam, this work bespeaks her love of dressing-up her subjects, her delight in the romantic and picturesque, and also her high degree of skill in this delicate medium.

Measures 18" x 24", frame 23 3/4" x 28 3/4".

Eleanor Merriam Lukits (1909 -1948) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She first leaned to paint from her father, the artist James A. Merriam. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1920 when Eleanor was in her early twenties.

She enrolled in the Lukits School of Fine Arts, where she studies classical art under the director, Theodore Lukits. Eleanor became one of Lukits's favorite models at the school. After several years of study, exhibiting her work, and winning awards at the Friday Morning Club and Ebell Club, she married Theodore Lukits in 1937 in Santa Barbara, California.

She loved painting models and actors and actresses in ethnic costumes, particularly Spanish costumes. Eleanor first aspired to be a portrait painter but later specialized in nature studies and floral still lifes.