Ruth Armer

Landscape with Cows

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Farm Mural Study, c. 1940, oil on Masonite, signed lower right, 15 x 42 inches; presented in a newer wood frame About the Painting A delightful regionalist composition, Cecil Head’s Farm Mural Study features a tidy and verdant farmscape where the animals outnumber the farmer and remind the viewer of an idealized fecundity of the American Midwest. Head gained early recognition for his mural designs in 1934 when his work was selected to represent Indiana in a Public Works of Art Project exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Head excelled at rural Indiana scenes and the present work bears comparison to his most famous painting, Potato Planters, a 1936 work, which won first prize at the Hoosier Salon and was exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in 1941. Both works feature hard-working farmers in straw hats standing against the back drop of farm buildings. A critic's commentary about Potato Planters also applies to Farm Mural Study, "the various farm objects...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Factory Worker, c. 1936, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 18 ¼ x 36 inches; exhibited in City ...

This painting is part of our exhibition American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Knight’s Lodging, 1941, oil on canvas panel, signed and dated lower left, 16 x 20 inches, exhi...

(Note: This work is part of our exhibition Connected by Creativity: WPA Era Works from the Collection of Leata and Edward Beatty Rowan) Oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches unframed, 22 x 18 inches framed, signed and dated lower right, inscribed “Mother and Son by Herman Maril ‘31” and “property Edward B. Rowan Falls Church VA” verso Literature: i) Dows, Olin, Herman Maril, The American Magazine of Art, Vol. 28, No. 7 (July 1935), p. 407 (illustrated with the title “Mare and Colt...

This mural study is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Industry and Commerce, 1936, tempera on panel, 16 ½ x 39 ½ inches, signed verso “John Ballator, Portland Ore.” provenance includes: J.C. Penney Company, represented by Russell Tether Fine Arts Assoc.; presented in a newer wood frame About the Painting Industry and Commerce is a prime example of WPA Era muralism. Like a Mediaeval alter, this mural study is filled with icons, but the images of saints and martyrs are replaced with symbols of America's gospel of prosperity through capitalism. Industry and Commerce has a strong narrative quality with vignettes filling the entire surface. Extraction, logistics, design, power generation, and manufacturing for printing, chemicals, automobiles and metal products are all represented. To eliminate any doubt about the mural's themes, Ballator letters a description into the bottom of the study. Ballator also presents an idealized version of industrial cooperation, as his workers, lab-coated technicians and tie-wearing managers work harmoniously toward a common goal in the tidy and neatly designed environments. Although far from the reality of most industrial spaces, Ballator's study reflects the idealized and morale boosting tone that many mural projects adopted during the Great Depression. About the Artist John R Ballator achieved success as a muralist, lithographer, and teacher during the Great Depression. Born in Oregon, he studied at the Portland Museum Art School, the University of Oregon and at Yale University where he received a Bachelor of Fine Art. In 1936, Ballator was commissioned to paint a mural panel for the new Department of Justice Building in Washington DC, an important project that spanned five years with several dozen artists contributing a total of sixty-eight designs. Ballator completed murals for the St. Johns Post Office and Franklin High School, both in Portland, Oregon. He also contributed to the 1938 murals at Nathan Hale School in New Haven, Connecticut. During the late 1930s, Ballator taught art for several years at Washburn College in Topeka, Kanas, where he completed a mural for the Menninger Arts & Craft Shop before accepting a professorship at Hollins College...

This watercolor is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Circus Wagons, 1927, watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower left, 10 x19 ¾ inches (sight), provenance includes Stary-Sheets Art Gallery (Gualala, CA); J. Ralph & Louis Stone Foundation; presented in a newer metal frame behind glazing About the Painting Millard Sheets was only twenty years old and in his third year of studies at the Chouinard Art Institute when he painted Circus Wagons. Despite his youth, Sheets was already an accomplished artist who had publicly exhibited his work and won prestigious prizes. Within several years, he would have his first solo exhibition at one of Los Angeles’ premiere galleries and become a painting instructor at his alma mater. In Circus Wagons we already see Sheets deft handling of the watercolor medium and his interest in the California Scene. In this case, Sheets captures a back lot view of a traveling circus, a subject he sometimes returned to, including in a color screen print in the collection of the National Gallery. Sheets made a career by painting what he knew and observed firsthand. This approach allowed Sheets to capture with authenticity the details of each narrative. Even with a narrowly limited palette and an economy of brushstrokes, Sheets effectively depicts the southern California scene with its strong and mysterious shadows, as well as the workers and circus animals. Seen through the hindsight of his six-decade long career, Circus Wagons offers a fascinating insight into the early development of California Scene painting which would by the mid-1930s become the best recognized style on the West Coast. About the Artist Millard Sheets was the dean of California watercolorists. His list of accomplishments is so extensive that his entry in Who was Who in American Art is over forty lines. Born in Pomona, California, Sheets became a painter at an early age, winning a prize at the Los Angeles County Fair in 1918. By the mid to late-1920s, Sheets became a regular at art exhibitions in the western part of the United States, winning several additional prizes before he reached the age of twenty-five. Sheets studied at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute from 1925 through 1929 with Frank Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle and had his first solo show with Los Angeles’ Dalzell Hatfield Gallery in 1929. During the 1930s, Sheets was invited to exhibit at almost every major American Museum and in many ways, his work came to represent the California watercolor school...

Oil on Board painting for American Weekly Magazine November 15, 1953. The decisive moment of a Cowboy and Horse is captured. As a determined team, t...

"Apaches" is an oil on canvas painting by Olaf Wieghorst. The painting is signed on the lower left, "O-Wieghorst". The framed piece measures 25 1/2 x 29 3/4 x 2 in. “When the time comes for me to put away my palette and unsaddle my pony for the last time, I hope that my canvases will in some small measure add to the historical recording of an era, the cowboy, and the great American West.” ~ Olaf Wieghorst Wieghorst worked with the mounted patrol of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Cavalry (1920-1922) with occasional interludes as a wrangler on ranches in the western states. Wherever he went, he sketched and painted the Western culture he loved, often selling his work as calendar and magazine illustrations. His work appeared in Zane Grey...

An oil painting by Contemporary American Realist painter Joe Paquet. Painted on site, or en plein air, a pastoral landscape features a vibrant grassy hillsi...

Oil on panel by Jenness Cortez signed and dated lower left beautifully framed and matted measuring 16" x 21" including the frame. This painting features two jockeys and their race ho...

Work on canvas

Friends and family enjoying the setting sun at Lake Tahoe with early evening light and majestic alpine mountain ridge in the distance. Willard Dixon is one of the finest American contemporary realist painters living today. The artist has painted Northern California coastal landscapes for over 35 years and his work captures the undeniable beauty of the West with its grand and humble spirit. Dixon’s work can be found in numerous distinctive private and public collections, as well as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Oakland Museum of California. Tahoe Evening is 35 x 55 inches. The work of art comes to you framed in a light wood floater frame and is ready to hang and enjoy for years to come. Artist signed and dated. Condition is excellent. SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Oakland Museum The Utah Museum of Fine Art The San Francisco Art Commission AMA Headquarters, washington, D.C. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., S.F. CA. Transamerica Headquarters,S.F., CA. San Francisco International Airport IBM Corporation, San Jose, CA. Pacific Bell SELECTED PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Mr. Harrison Ford Mr. Peter Duchin Ms. Linda Ronstadt Ms Faye Dunaway Mr. Peter Morton Mrs. H.J. Heinze Mr Rupert Lowenstein Mr. Chappy Morris Mr. Griffen Dunne Margy Boyd Caroline Graham Mr. Richard Baker Ms. Sabrina Guinness Mr. Peter Asher...