Acrylic on board, 1990, signed and dated at lower right, presented in a gilt frame.


Frame dimensions 35 x 51 in.

Private Collection, Raleigh, North Carolina

Dr. Ruth Mae McCrane was born and raised in Texas. The daughter of a Baptist minister, McCrane grew up in Houston's Third Ward. She was a lifelong educator, teaching art, history and language in Houston public schools. She painted in her spare time.

Upon retirement, Dr. McCrane devoted her life to painting, chronicling life in Depression-era East Texas and Louisiana. Working on canvas, paper and plywood, her vividly colored paintings depicted various aspects of African American secular and religious activities, including schoolchildren, family gatherings, cotton and melon picking, rodeos, juke joints and more.

In 2021, the African American Museum in Dallas mounted an exhibition of McCrane's paintings, "The Lost Books of the Bible."

Some surface scratches and abrasions with associated losses, some fleabite losses; frame with light wear.