Raul’s
Ruth Meria
Created : 1995
Donated : 1993
Medium : Painting/Oil
Dimensions: 52 inx55 in
Located: 3rd Floor, Southeast Hallway
Raul’s was a restaurant in downtown Santa Fe in the 1970s and 80s where many local artists used to gather for lunch; it eventually lost its lease to a gallery. There is a nostalgia associated with the café that Ruthi Meria’s painted interior profoundly captures. The artist explains that she was particularly inspired by “the angle of the side window” and “the light streaming in on the two people resting at the table.” The painting’s treatment of light and shadow, reminiscent of the style of Edward Hopper, floods the interior space and its inhabitants. “I wanted to get down the wonderful lightness of being,” and the “communal feeling the place had,” explains Meria.
About the Artist
Ruthi Meria was born in Chicago, Illinois. She studied drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1950s. In 1966, she studied painting with Elmer Bischoff and later with George McNeill and Esteban Vicente at the New York Studio School in New York City. Meria moved to Santa Fe in 1971, where she continues to live and work. She has had one-person exhibitions at the Artists’ Gallery, the Plum Tree Gallery, the Santa Fe Public Library, and the Bank of Santa Fe.
