Judith Adrienne Von Euer

November 19, 1938 - November 29, 2020 Visual artist, musician, and art professor Judith Von Euer died on November 29 in Thousand Oaks, California. She was 82.Von Euer was a highly innovative and versatile participant in the L.A. arts scene for more than four decades. Her work bridged diverse fields, including painting, design, experimental jazz, and traditional Japanese music. Von Euer's artistic experimentation extended to concepts, subject matter, media, and techniques. Her works were shown in several dozen solo and group exhibitions at locations ranging throughout the Southland, from the Pasadena and Long Beach Museums of Art and LACMA to the avant-garde galleries downtown and college showings. In 2001, L.A. Artcore did a retrospective exhibit based on forty years of her work. Her work also was displayed at eight outdoor sites, including her mural, the "Flow Inversion/Inverted Freeway," which shows the influence of her interest in geology and can be seen at First and Fremont Streets in the L.A. Civic Center. She worked with many artists, including her friend Ben Sakoguchi, whose interests, like hers, reached to the larger world.Von Euer's parallel career in music also demonstrated her versatility. A longtime member of the American Federation of Musicians Local #47, she played the saxophone as a teenager with her sister Sonya in the Ina Ray Hutton All Girl Orchestra. Her many jazz collaborators included Grammy-nominated percussionist Don Knaack, with whom she composed and performed the experimental opera Ornette's Way. She played the saxophone, flute, clarinet, snare drum, recorder, koto, shakuhachi, shamisen, and other instruments. She performed in medieval, baroque, and renaissance music groups. She played for many years with the Wakita Japanese Ensemble, performing on koto in Ms. Wakita's work, "Executive Order 9066: The Japanese-American Journey." A graduate of Hollywood High, Von Euer received her BA and an MFA in Painting from UCLA. At Los Angeles Valley College, she taught courses in painting, drawing, design, printmaking, and art history for thirty-five years.Judith Adrienne Von Euer was born on November 19, 1938, in Sacramento. She was the fourth of nine children born to George Llewellyn Von Euer and Olga Zorka Von Euer (nee' Zambelich). The family moved to Los Angeles in 1939, partly so the children could pursue careers in the entertainment industry.She enjoyed tennis, skiing, hiking, backpacking, and gardening. She was politically active in the movements for women's rights and environmental protection, and against nuclear weapons.While teaching at LAVC, she met Harriet Baker, a professor of art history. The two remained colleagues, collaborators, and partners for the rest of Ms. Baker's life. They purchased a 17th-century house in Menerbes, a small village in southern France, which they visited annually. She set up a studio, and the environs became another source of creative inspiration. Together Baker and Von Euer wrote a book about Menerbes for which they received medals from the town mayor.Judith played a strong part in keeping her large family connected. She is survived by two of her sisters, Sheila and Renée, by her brother, Gary and numerous nieces and nephews.