O’er Waiting Harp Strings

Donna Schuster
O’er Waiting Harp Strings
Oil on canvas, 1921
30 x 30 inches
Gift of Catherine Jackson
1954.001

Donna Schuster showed O’er Waiting Harp Strings in the 1927 exhibition of the Group of Eight, an organization of progressively-minded artists in Los Angeles. The painting expresses the musician’s rapture through an almost lurid juxtaposition of the complementary colors of yellow and violet. The brilliant effect of light above her head reads almost as a spiritual emanation. The title is from a hymn with lyrics by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science: “O’er waiting harp strings of the mind…”