New Canaan Artist Ed Eberman’s Work Showing Now at New Canaan Library

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The late Edwin Eberman—a man known to New Canaanites as a local artist whose influence can be felt throughout our town—was born in 1905 in the small town of Black Mountain, North Carolina.

There, Mr. Eberman worked a number of odd jobs—from construction project cost accountant to type setter of the local newspaper, before graduating from Roxboro High School where he was the editor and illustrator of the yearbook. Through all those years, Mr. Eberman nurtured and developed what became an abiding, lifelong passion for art. In fact, his daughter, New Canaan resident Alice Jennings, recalled on a recent afternoon, he was known to say that he could not remember a time when he was not “always drawing.”

“Every Halloween my parents would not give out candy but my Dad would paint everybody in their costumes,” Ms. Jennings recalled.

It’s one of many ways that Mr. Eberman’s talent took form in New Canaan, along with more permanent examples such as Christmas cards, sketches of local scenes, paintings and pieces still in place at the New Canaan Inn, Congregational Church and Waveny Care Center. A selection of Mr. Eberman’s art is on display now and through Aug. 9 in the H. Pelham Curtis Gallery at the New Canaan Library—a purely artistic exhibition whose realistic works will be easy for locals to identify with, his daughter said.

“I’m glad we have this exhibit because I’ve wanted to do it for a long time and the library has a lot of people who want to exhibit here for commercial [purposes], but my father never sold any of his paintings, so this is purely a realistic, homegrown artist’s show,” Ms. Jennings said.

Here’s a slideshow depicting some pieces on display at the library. The article continues below.

[acx_slideshow name=”Ed Eberman”]

 

It’s a show that demonstrates Mr. Eberman’s wide-ranging artistic interests—the result of formal study, as well as raw talent.

Pursuing his passion for art, Mr. Eberman graduated from The Carnegie College of Fine Arts in 1927. And his passion for painting held long after his formal retirement, Ms. Jennings said.

“He retired in 1960 and he died in ’86 so he spent just over 25 years every day painting and drawing,” she said. “He was very prolific.”

One of Ms. Jennings’ great memories of her father was when he’d paint or draw for other people during the holidays.

“Every year for 50 years, he did a Christmas card booklet with drawings of all the places he travelled all over the world,” Ms. Jennings recalled. Ms. Jennings also remembered a tradition of painting children in their Halloween costumes instead of handing out candy.

Most of the time, his daughter recalled, Mr. Eberman would paint and draw from the comfort of his studio, using pictures taken from trips to capture images of everything from an island in Yugoslavia to the stone head monuments on Easter Island.

“He painted mostly in his studio because he would travel and take a lot of photographs then come home and project them on the wall and he would paint from the slides,” Ms. Jennings said. “He also did some plein air paintings, which means he did them outside, but most of his painting was done in the studio.”

According to Ms. Jennings, Mr. Eberman cared deeply about giving back to the community.

“It was in his blood,” Ms. Jennings said. “He had a lot of artistic insight, so he helped with the design of the garden outside of The New Canaan Inn, the atrium at Waveny Care Center, the Chapel Garden at the Congregational Church which has a plaque which is a tribute to him.”

[Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with Ms. Jennings’ correct first name.]