in New Orleans for the first time in 1948. Ruellan's paintings from this period often contain children in Mardi Gras costumes and masks. They might seem to be playful, but there are disturbing elements in their too-adult attitudes and the segregation of onlookers. Children's Mardi Gras of 1949 is one of her best-known works of this period. It shows four children wearing carnival masks and costumes. Their pose suggests an attempt to mimic decadent adult behavior that is associated with Mardi Gras. Behind them, four uncostumed children peer through a grating on the top of a wall and another is seen through a metal-wire barrier. Of the four costumed children, one pair are dancing together. The two appear again in Ruellan's Masques of 1951, a sugar lift aquatint print. The composition of the print resembles that of her drawing, Coal Delivery. In both works the figures are moving from left to right, glancing downward and in both one sees the same diagonal and vertical lines of force. However, in tone the two works are distinctly different from one another. In Coal Delivery the viewer is led to share the artist's empathy with her subject while in Masques the viewer senses the discordance of the scene. In the latter, there is no youthful exuberance, nothing like the quiet resilience and sturdy courage conveyed by the former. In the mid-1950s, Ruellan's work began to brighten again. She did not return to the social realism of the 1930s, but, following a trip to France, her art became increasingly abstract. At about that time she began to do sumi ink wash painting which proved to be a useful tool in merging representational fragments into an overall abstract approach. Seed Dates of 1960 (15 x 24 inches) is an example of her sumi work. It shows a stalk of dates lying on an undifferentiated flat surface. Her most abstract work came after a stay in Florida during the early 1960s. An untitled colored monotype from that period, which is informally called "Boulders", while clearly revealing its subject, nonetheless shows sympathy the art of the Abstract Expressionists and is both brighter and freer than her work in the post-war period. In these paintings the panels of color are elements of design as much as objects in nature. Personal information Ruellan's father, André (also known as Andrew), worked in the aviation industry as a pilot and mechanic.