two turkeys in the foreground. Ruellan made sketches for the painting in Lawrenceville but it is clear that she did not make the painting from a single drawing but rather constructed it, frieze-like, out of a number of scenes she viewed. The composite nature of the composition draws attention to the painting's symbolic import. Of this symbolism, one critic said "the whole has the patchwork quality of abiding memories and not the spontaneity and vitality of an actual scene." Ruellan was represented by Maynard Walker Galleries, New York, from 1936 until 1941 when she switched to the Kraushaar Galleries where she continued for the rest of her life. Her reason for leaving the Walker Galleries had to do with an unwanted association. That gallery was known for showing the work of the leading American Scene painters Although there were similarities in subject matter, Ruellan did not see herself as a genre painter of this type. She insisted that her subjects be actual people not just representatives of a class of people, a race, or residents of a geographic region. She was also more modernist in her approach and her work showed influences of the French avant-garde not present in theirs. Ruellan signed with the American Artists Group soon after the company's founding in 1936. She contributed works to their catalog in the category called "fine art reproductions of museum artists." Both in Paris and New York she made a habit of making circus sketches which she later developed into paintings, gouache, and prints to which American Artists Group purchased reproduction rights. A well-known example of this work is a gouache called Pop! Goes the Weasel. She also made seasonal images for cards and colored advertisements. One of the latter promoted the drinking of beer during the traditional Thanksgiving meal. Called Thanksgiving Dinner, it appeared in 1945 accompanied by text naming it "one of a series of typical American scenes painted by America's foremost artists." Later life and work During World War II and the post-war years, Ruellan's style evolved to become darker and her work began to convey greater tension than before and to show surrealistic tendencies. She appears to have been disillusioned by the devastation suffered by Europeans during and after the war, by the discrimination suffered by her close friend, the Japanese-American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and by her reaction to the extravagant Mardi Gras celebrations which she experienced