Original Watercolor Painting “Romero Street” [SOLD]

Morris Rippel lived his whole life in Albuquerque.  He attended the University of New Mexico from which he earned a degree in architecture, a career he practiced for 15 years.  He decided to try his hand at fine art painting and took two paintings to a gallery in Santa Fe which sold them immediately so he decided to drop his architectural career and become a fine art painter. He had a very successful art career.

This watercolor of Romero Street is a very accurate portrayal of that section of Old Town Albuquerque.  The long adobe building on the right with two long and narrow windows and a door was the home of Adobe Gallery for 25 years!  We have fond memories of that building.

Rippel received the prestigious Prix de West—National Academy of Western Arts award in 1979 for a painting which then became part of the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s permanent collection.  He also received several gold and silver medal awards from the academy.

Rippel was honored with a one-man retrospective at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  He also was exhibited in Europe and Asia.  New Mexico named him a recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts in 1997.

It has been noted that Rippel would study an area for several years before putting the image on paper so he could evaluate the subject and absorb it so that his painting would involve him personally.  He was meticulous with the paints.  He achieved with watercolor what many artists failed to do.  His lines are clear and defined unlike most watercolor paintings.

Snow is a very difficult medium to properly present with watercolor paints.  Rippel tackled the subject with the eye of an architect and artist and did an amazing job of presenting it unquestionably as snow as it appears in life.

Condition: appears to be in original condition but has not been examined out of the frame.

Provenance: the current owners from Oklahoma purchased it in 1997 from the Grapevine Gallery of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Recommended Reading: Susan E Meyer, 40 Watercolorists and How They Work