Ruth Armer San Francisco Bay Area Modernist Landscape Painting

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Description

Artist: Ruth Armer – American (1896-1977)
Title: Untitled
Year: circa 1940
Medium: Watercolor and gouache on paper
Sight size: 13.75 … Read more Artist: Ruth Armer – American (1896-1977)
Title: Untitled
Year: circa 1940
Medium: Watercolor and gouache on paper
Sight size: 13.75 x 19.5 inches.
Framed size: 22.75 x 28 inches
Signature: Signed lower right
Condition: Very good
Frame: Frame in good condition. Mat in fair condition


This painting is by the noted San Francisco Bay Area artist Ruth Armer (1896-1977). It exhibits some abstraction, especially in the foliage, that would become full abstraction later in the career of the artist. I have estimated the date the painting was done based on the level of abstraction. The painting is in very good condition. It is attached to the mat. The mat is in fair condition with some light toning. The painting will look best if the existing mat is overmatted. The modern wood frame is in good condition. I will change the glass to plexiglas for safe shipping.

Ruth Armer (May 26, 1896 – August 29, 1977) was an American abstractionist painter, teacher, art collector, and lithographer, from the San Francisco Bay area in California. Her art is held in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Armer was born in1896, in San Francisco, California. She attended the California School of Fine Arts and the School of Fine and Applied Art in New York. While in New York, she studied at the Art Students League with influential American artists such as George Bellows, Robert Henri, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan.

Armer was regarded as "one of San Francisco's more profound abstractionists. " She had solo exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1936 and 1939, and in the Quay Gallery in San Francisco in 1972 and 1975.

She painted landscapes, portraits, and abstract works, and was also a lithographer. Her art was influenced by her experience living in California, and her subject matter included the California desert and the cityscapes of San Francisco. Armer studied under George Bellows, Robert Henri, Kenneth Miller and John Sloan at the School of Fine and Applied Art in New York. She taught drawing, painting and other subjects at the California School of Fine Arts, today known as the San Francisco Art Institute, from 1933 to 1940. During her career, she also worked at the Oakland Museum, and later served on the Board of Directors. After retiring from teaching, she devoted her time to painting in her studio on Russian Hill, in San Francisco.

Ruth Armer died in San Francisco in 1977. Her papers have been preserved in the Smithsonian Institution Archives. (Source: Wikipedia) See less