Harry Carmean and Miriam Slater photographed by Greg Preston

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Harry Carmean paintings in elegant Santa Barbara homes

We just spotted this ad in Santa Barbara Magazine - over the mantle is Harry Carmean's "Spanish Dancer" painting. There are a number of prominent collectors in Santa Barbara who have been purchasing Carmean's work over the years including the upscale Bacara Hotel, contemporary art collector Barry Berkus, actor Jeff Bridges and his wife Susan, Diana Basehart (founder of the Diana Basehart Foundation), Sarah Gore Lee and philanthropist Nancy Koppleman.

Jeff Bridges purchases another Harry Carmean painting

Jeff and Susan Bridges have been fans of Harry Carmean's for twenty years, a relationship which began back when they met in Los Angeles in the late 1980's. Bridges, (who, like Harry Carmean now lives in Santa Barbara) owns a number of his paintings (as well as some of Miriam Slater's work) and has just purchased another oil painting with a family theme to celebrate the birth of their grandchild.

Miriam Slater hand painted fans for sale...

Some faux leopard vintage Japanese fans by Miriam Slater.

New Harry Carmean website in Spanish

Harry Carmean's has a new website in Spanish: http://harrycarmeanpintura.com/

Harry Carmean drawings of ballet dancers

Harry Carmean generally preferred to draw the nude figure and only rarely drew models in costume. Fortunately for us, he did make some beautiful drawings of ballet dancers done from live models, some of which ended up in being used in his ballet paintings done in the 1990's on through the 2000's. The photo below was taken in one of Carmean's life drawing classes held at Art Center in the early 1980's.

Recent Miriam Slater sales at the Poetic Eye Gallery

Here are a few small surreal paintings by Miriam Slater that recently sold at the Poetic Eye Gallery - the bottom painting, part of Slater's "architectural landscape" series, was purchased by a prominent collector of California artists. More of Slater's paintings of this genre (they were done in the 1980's-1990's) can be viewed at miriamslaterart.com.