Calabi Gallery

Featuring an Eclectic Array of Primarily 20th Century Artwork

Ruth Armer

#2#2 by Ruth Armer, 1949, Oil on Canvas Board – SOLD

Ruth Armer was born in San Francisco on May 26, 1896, where she spent the majority of her career as an artist. Armer attended the California School of Fine Arts from 1914-15 and 1918-19. Between these years she studied at the Art Students League and School of Fine and Applied Art in New York, under George Bellows, Robert Henri, Kenneth Miller and Joan Sloan. During this time, her artistic career was greatly influenced by Leo Stein and Max Weber.

After returning to California, Armer taught at the California School of Fine Arts from 1933-40, and worked at the Oakland Museum. From the early 1940s until the early 1970s she was a trustee of the CSFA and remembered the school generously in her will. Wife of Joseph Bransten, Ruth Armer died on August 29, 1977 in her native city of San Francisco.

Armer was a painter, lithographer and teacher, whose work style ranged from her earlier more representational work to her later more abstract art. Known today as one of San Francisco’s more profound abstractionists, many of her works feature desert scenes, giant sequoias, and her beloved city of San Francisco, among many more California subjects.

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