Ruth Armer Landscape Paintings

Landscape with Cows, c. 1930s, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches, signed lower middle About the Painting Landscape with Cows is a fine example of California Scene painting, the West Coast version of the American Scene genre practiced during the 1930s and 1940s by the likes of Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry. Armer stands out as one of the rare female oil painters working in this style in California, as most of her contemporaries were men whose fame largely depended on watercolor as a medium. Like many Regionalist painters, Armer heeded the call to paint the local scene during the 1930s and even in the depths of the Great Depression, she captured the natural beauty and abundance of the California ranch lands. For many migrants from the Dust Bowl and the southern parts of the United States, California was a golden land of opportunity. In Landscape with Cows, Armer plays on this theme by portraying the fields and distant foothills in a variety of golden hues. This work is a celebration of California’s unique geography, and it fits nicely into the grand tradition of American landscape painting. Armer’s spare treatment of the distant hills and buildings presages the abstract forms she later began to explore in earnest. Like many other artists working during the 1930s, Armer moved strongly towards abstraction by the 1940s, making her critically celebrated California Scene landscapes rare. About the Artist Ruth Armer...

Wonderful mid-century watercolor of Palm Springs by Ruth Armer (American, 1896-1977), c.1940s. Signed lower left corner. Image size: 14"H x 20"W. Presented...