Andrée Ruellan

Ruellan was born in New York and is best known for her depictions of that city and of the American South. Her work was first exhibited when she was nine years old, in a group show selected by Robert Henri. In 1920, her father died and she began selling paintings to support her family; she won a scholarship to study at the Art Students League that year. In the 1920s she and her mother lived in Paris and she met John W. Taylor, a painter who would become her husband. They settled near Woodstock, New York, and became part of the art colony there. During the Great Depression, Ruellan traveled through the American South, painting and drawing images of the everyday life of the region.