Since she started exhibiting her work 15 years ago, Naomi Shachar’s emotive oil paintings of Western scenes and personalities have been celebrated and honored in competitions and exhibitions across the country. But, when she was just starting out as an artist, she aimed to please only one critic: her mother, Esther Katz.
Seeking her mother’s input wasn’t solely about familiarity or honesty, but more about the respect she had for her mother’s appreciation of good art—her eye for it, her sensibilities. “She had a keen eye for art and could discern quality workmanship of form and color,” says Shachar, who lives in Mission Viejo, California. “She was drawn towards realistic and impressionist paintings, mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries, but at home there were mostly realistic pieces.”
Her mother’s own history with art was a painful one. Born in Debrecen, Hungary, she and her family were among the half-million Jews transported from Hungary to the Auschwitz concentration camp during Germany’s occupation of Hungary in World War II. Katz, healthy and young at the time, was put to work while her parents and sister were put to death. Katz survived, but her family and the family’s art did not.
Read the full article in the March/April 2025 issue.
Cooling Off
oil
24″ by 32″
Well Deserved
oil
20″ by 20″
