DARIA NIEBLING SHACHMUT1946 - 2021 Carmel Art Association Artist Member Daria Shachmut passed away peacefully at age 75 in her Carmel Highlands home on March 8, 2021, after a courageous, two-year battle with acute myeloid leukemia. Born on a farm in Central Massachusetts, Daria possessed a lifelong love of art and animals. An only child, she began drawing at age four, encouraged by her mother who was an art teacher and an exhibiting painter of romantic, impressionist works. From this young age, Daria enjoyed taking art classes at Worcester Art Museum. There she learned how to mix red, blue, and yellow paint to achieve the brown of a golden palomino horse she had drawn. From that moment on she was smitten by the magic of color, and art became a primary source of joy and accomplishment throughout her life. As a child Shachmut was already drawn to capturing the human figure and painting portraits. “My mother created very idealized portraits. Everything I undertook was a rejection of that perfection. I suppose I was rebelling a little with my choice of palette and my style,” she once related in an interview. Shachmut earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in art from Connecticut College and a Master of Arts in art education at Philadelphia College of Art. Then, in the early 1970s, Daria moved to California where she taught art in public schools and community colleges in the San Francisco Bay area. Next, she took a 180-degree career turn and earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of California Los Angeles before working in the corporate banking world. This detour was eventually eclipsed by art when Daria, her husband Ken, and their sons Brian and Chris moved to the Carmel Highlands on the Monterey Peninsula in 2003. There she became fascinated by the Hereford cattle of El Sur Ranch in Big Sur and the Longhorn cattle of Bar 46 Ranch in the Salinas Valley and Central Valley. Through these cows, she returned to portraiture, capturing each animal’s unique temperament, gestures, and personalities with great sensitivity and fervor, as well as the unique light in these two valleys, using some 10,000 snapshots she took of cows as reference material. Said Daria, "I love these cattle; no two look alike and each one has a unique personality." Daria also delighted in discovering the attitudes and personalities of human figures in her revealing impressionistic style. With the full-hearted support of her husband, Shachmut furthered her creative development by studying with artists Quang Ho, Carolyn Anderson, Rose Frantzen, Bob Gerbracht, Daniel Gerhartz, David Leffel, Huihan Liu, Jove Wang, and Jeffrey Watts. Shachmut felt that her instinct to observe the world was a big part of what led her to become an artist. She said that the best advice she ever received as a painter was to excel at drawing, because “ if the drawing is off, no matter how well the colors and values work, the painting will not hold together.” She also learned “to really look, to see, to be aware of how form turns into space, where the light source is located, and whether the light is warm or cool.” In 2011 Shachmut was juried into the CAA based upon her keen eye for color and detail and an innate gift for capturing emotional content in oils on canvas or panel. “Joining the CAA is a feeling of brotherhood,” she said. “The artists on their membership roster are passionate about what they are creating. It makes me feel like I’ve found my tribe.” For a decade until her untimely passing in March of 2021, Daria delivered five different series for CAA exhibitions: ethereal and psychologically compelling pastels of acrobats, portraits of cows and bulls, children at play by the seaside, swimmers enjoying indoor pools, and portraits of powerful women representing iconic occupations as diverse as motherhood, religious celebrant, agricultural field worker, and fortune teller. Shachmut exhibited widely, including shows at the following prestigious museums: Corning Museum in New York, Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, and Oakland Museum in California. Her work was also featured in a documentary series called Portfolios on KQED, the Public Broadcasting Service affiliate in San Francisco. Over the years Daria earned many awards in distinguished art competitions across the country and was featured in Southwest Art, American Art Collector, and The Artists magazines. In addition to the Carmel Art Association, Daria held memberships in the American Impressionist Society, California Art Club, Oil Painters of America, American Plains Artists, and Portrait Society of America. Daria Shachmut once told arts writer Dennis Taylor, “Whenever somebody buys one of my paintings, I feel like I’ve found a friend—a person who sees and appreciates the world the way I do. I feel honored, as if we understand each other on a very deep level.”