By her later teens Esther was already running with a lively and artistic crowd. Not only was she experimenting with painting, but she was dancing for a brief time with the modern dance group led by Anna Sokolow - and she was modeling for photoshoots with her brother, my uncle Irving, who was also involved in photography. The one you see above is a "pin-up" pose taken on the famous rocks of Rockport, Mass. by Irving Geller.
This moody sepia-tone (and mostly unretouched) portrait of Esther was taken by Irving as a practice shot around 1937, when she would have been 16. Esther was already working on art and signage at her high school. One afternoon at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts a mutual friend introduced Esther to a jazz pianist and teen-age bandleader in front of John Singer Sargent's masterpiece, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. The musician was Harold Shapero, who was already composing music. That would be my father, but these young artists and musicians didn't know that. I owe my existence to John Singer Sargent and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
By 1938-39 Esther and Harold were dating. Esther entered the prestigious Boston Museum School, and Harold went to Harvard, where he would study with the best composers of his day.
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