Sallie Ritter Oil on Canvas — Edinburgh Rooftops, Framed

An oil on stretched canvas by Sallie Ritter (b. 1947, Las Cruces, NM) depicting a densely compressed European roofscape: stone facades, clustered chimney stacks, and steeply pitched slate roofs pressing against a pale overcast sky, with a narrow strip of pinkish cobblestone anchoring the foreground. The composition is formally sophisticated — Ritter flattens the picture plane, tilts her rooflines, and bows her central building slightly outward, reorganizing observed architecture for pictorial effect in the manner of mid-century modernist painters. The palette is deliberately restrained: warm ochres and tans against cool slate grays, punctuated by small hits of red at the chimney pots and flashes of acid yellow-green at the right edge — the only saturated notes in an otherwise atmospheric whole. Brushwork is loose and confident, with canvas texture visible throughout the sky and lighter wall surfaces. The viewpoint — elevated, looking across and slightly down into a compressed urban close — is characteristic of Edinburgh's Old Town, where the city's famous wynds and closes create exactly this layered, enclosed geometry. Ritter trained at Edinburgh College of Art's School of Drawing and Painting from 1967 to 1968, and she has noted that her Scottish work directly reflected its environment. This canvas reads as a primary document of that formative period. Signed lower right in black paint.

Presented in a cerused gray wood frame with linen mat, no glass. Ready to hang with picture wire installed.

CONDITION

Good. Canvas is stable with no tears, losses, or paint layer concerns; the image presents cleanly with strong color integrity. Frame shows minor scuffing at edges consistent with age, with no damage affecting the work itself.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Overall (Framed): 44¼" H × 38½" W × ⅞" D
• Visible (Canvas): 33¼" H × 27½" W
• Medium: Oil on stretched canvas
• Signature: Lower right, black paint — "Sallie Ritter"
• Frame: Cerused gray wood with linen mat, no glass
• Hardware: Picture wire, mounted D-rings

ABOUT THE ARTIST — Sallie Ritter (b. 1947, Las Cruces, NM)

Sallie Ritter was born in Las Cruces in 1947, a fifth-generation New Mexican. She began drawing as a child and sold her first work at age eleven. Her formal training took her to Europe: art history at the University of Rome in 1965, followed by classical study at the Edinburgh College of Art's School of Drawing and Painting from 1967 to 1968 — curriculum in anatomy, figure drawing, advanced composition, and genre. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College in 1969. Ritter has noted that her environment shaped her work directly while abroad, her Scottish paintings reflecting the overcast skies and compressed urban character of Edinburgh, while her return to New Mexico restored the open landscapes and vibrant color for which she is primarily known.

Her work has been featured in more than twenty solo exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC and the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Women's Board of the Museum of New Mexico, the Doña Ana Arts Council in Las Cruces, and the Southwest and Border Cultures Institute, and holds membership in the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She is listed in Marquis Who's Who in America, Who's Who of American Women, and Who's Who in the World.

In 2014, Ritter and her husband, Dr. Kent F. Jacobs, received the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts as Major Contributors to the Arts. The couple has bequeathed their Mesilla Valley home and art collection to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation to establish the New Mexico Museum of Art Jacobs-Ritter Compound — a satellite state art museum in Las Cruces, with an endowment dedicated to arts education programs. Ritter maintains her studio in the Mesilla Valley north of Las Cruces, where she continues to paint.