The incredible story of the German-born painter Julian Ritter includes art and adventures that span the globe, his son Mike Ritter told the Sun. But his talent was apparent even at an early age, when he received guidance from an artist in Germany when he was a small child. Ritter’s talent bore him across oceans, to America, the South Pacific, and Hawaii, where he was living with his son when he passed in 2000, at the age of 90.
Now, the late artist’s personal collection is on display at a new gallery in Guadalupe, Ritter928, owned and operated by the younger Ritter and his nephew Brian Peluso, (Julian’s grandson from his daughter Christine). Ritter immediately fell in love with the sleepy, windswept town after an afternoon walking through Guadalupe and a lunch at El Tapatio.
“I’d been living in Hawaii, so I’m moving to California to find a good school district for my son, and we were visiting my friend in Arroyo Grande who said, ‘Let’s take a hike at Point Sal and stop in Guadalupe for some Mexican lunch.’ And so we took the hike and stopped here for a Mexican lunch, and I looked around and thought, ‘Whoa,’” Ritter said. “The next day I came back and did the same thing all over again.”
Now, right next door to El Tapatio, Ritter owns the beautiful old building in which he showcases his father’s work. The dark hardwood floors and whitewashed walls contain a whirling vortex of creative energy, literally a lifetime of creative output. Ritter’s arrangement of his father’s work tells the artists’ story potently, with a self-portrait hanging above portraits of Ritter and his sister in childhood, and a smaller depiction of their mother, Hildegarde Sabena Meyer-Radon, sits atop a small electric organ.
Along the opposite wall, large-scale works hang, displaying Julian Ritter’s personal exploration of large scenes, often depicting bacchanalian epics, a far cry from what the artist was known for during his meteoric rise. He was commercially successful with portraits, of course, many of which depicted clowns, but he was also in high demand for his paintings of women, especially nudes.
“He was particularly good, I mean, he loved women—don’t we all—but women really loved him,” Ritter said.
“Just a side note,” Peluso added, “Howard Hughes had a couple hotels back in the day in Vegas and collected these, it was called the Silver Slipper collection, and some of these nudes here were included.”
The late Ritter got his break in Hollywood, his son explained, painting portrait props quickly, sometimes without enough time for the paint to dry before the work was part of a scene. His popularity took off and he became successful, buying a home in Santa Barbara where his kids grew up and he worked constantly.
Unfortunately, the peace and prosperity of life in Santa Barbara wouldn’t last for the artist, his son explained.
“My mother passed away in 1966, and once again, he sells the house, packs up everything, and buys a boat,” Ritter said. “That was his lifelong dream, to buy a boat, and to go to the South Pacific, every German’s dream.”
Several paintings highlight the leisurely beauty Ritter’s father found in Mexico, Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Moorea while traversing that Pacific in his boat named Galilee. Several landscapes hanging at Ritter928 illustrate a departure from the artist’s regular bread and butter, more personal explorations of the natural world while on his extended vacation, which lasted more than two years.
The vacation became an ordeal when Julian Ritter and two crewmembers ran out of supplies, and the ship’s batteries died en route to Hawaii in 1970, Ritter explained. Headlines in Santa Barbara newspapers declared the artist and his crew missing, and several publications—archival PDF files are viewable online—broadcasted the good news when the Galilee and its crew were found safe by the USS Niagara Falls near Hawaii.
“This affected him, it was like a psychedelic experience, and all those days without food at sea, he had a lot of visions,” Ritter said. “In that situation, like anybody, he had an opportunity to review his life, and after that experience, many of his paintings became quite a bit different.”
The paintings Julian Ritter created after that experience are a profound departure from the portraits and nudes he was known for. Several have a strong cosmological bent, or explore themes of transcendence.
Also sitting by the front window is a painting the artist created of the boat, the Galilee, and framed nearby is the tattered American flag that was flying upside down when the boat was found. In this way, Ritter928 is more than just an art gallery, but a true encapsulation of a profoundly creative life.
“But it’s not a mausoleum,” Ritter said, smiling. “We want to celebrate the artist.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne was impressed by the collection. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 10-17, 2015.
1970 – 71. Frank Barna and I worked on the Galilee in Honolulu Harbor and sailed the Galilee back to Santa Barbara at Julian’s request. We worked on the Galilee in order to get her “ship shape” and left towards the end of March, 1971 arriving around the beginning of May, 1971. Julian showed us paintings that were influenced by his sailing experiences and he also liked to show pictures before he sailed and then after was lost at sea after he returned. The difference in his style and use of color was interesting.