Eva Cellini

Eva Cellini

Eva Cellini, a painter of startling and beautifully crafted surrealist imagery, died Wednesday, August 9th, at her home in Leonia. A former illustrator who turned to fine art in her fifties, Cellini exhibited over four decades in galleries in New York City, Aspen and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She was 92.

Ms. Cellini was born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Hungary. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts in Budapest, she worked at a factory that made banners for annual May Day parades. In 1956, following the failed Hungarian uprising, Cellini and her late husband, Joseph, fled across the mountains to Austria. From there, they came as refugees to the United States, sailing into New York Harbor on New Year's Day 1957.

Her career as a fine artist began in the late 1970s after a commercial audition piece in which she put a coffee maker into a 17th-Century still life. The successful advertisement touted the modern appliance as "a classic." She pursued this kind of juxtaposition into full-blown surrealism, using symbols such as keys and flowers to express the unlocking of mysteries and the blossoming of the spirit. Her paintings conjure up dark and quirky impossibilities —a monkey in armor, an orchid sprouting from an industrial pipe, a giant lightbulb on a forest floor - all rendered with the realist precision of the Old Masters.

She likened her method to psychological free association. "It's a very strange process," she told an interviewer in 2015. "I often don't understand what the painting is about until I've finished it."

When her husband died, she was left with no immediate family. But she kept and cultivated many close friendships. She was an avid conversationalist and lifelong learner. Her interests included gardening, cooking, science, mathematics, spirituality, and the natural world. She continued climbing the stairs and painting in her studio past her 90th birthday.

Funeral arrangements are private. No service is currently planned. Donations in Eva's memory can be made to a charity for wildlife or animal welfare.