Artist George Stave, of Cranbury

Artist George Stave, 88, died of respiratory failure in his home in Cranbury on Aug. 26.

Born July 29, 1923 in Los Angeles, Stave was the oldest of three sons of Wilma (nee Moore) and George Arne Stave, a Norwegian immigrant. After groing up in Salinas, California, he returned to Los Angeles at the age of 17 as a scholarship student at the Chouinard Art Institute.

In his early 20's Stave worked as a set painter in the art department of Paramount Studios and as a painting instructor at the Jepson Art Institute. He moved to Paris in 1949 and studied painting at the Academie Julian.

In 1951 Stave was awarded a Fulbright Act grant for a year's study in India, and therafter traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and Japan, studying and collecting art. Returning to New York in the mid-1950s, he was briefly a student of the abstract expessionist painter Robert Motherwell at Hunter College, and took classes at the Art Students League. 

He turned away from avant- garde movements in his own art, preferring representational painting which was his lifelong passion. He exhibited his impessionistic portraits, interiors and especially closely observed landscapes and still lifes in galleries and museums in California, New Jersey and New York. 

A member of the United Scenic Artists union, he worked for most of his career as a set painter for NBC Studios and later, Lincoln Scenic Studios, in New York.

In 1956 he married Mahbubeh Mahboubian, who survives him, along with three daughters, Pari Stave of Cranbury, Shirin Stave-Matias of Tomar, Portugal and Kian Stave of New York; a son in law, Fausto Matias; and three grandchildren.