Waterhouse Gallery was established in 1984 by Ralph & Diane Waterhouse. In 1991 the Gallery moved to its present location at the corner of State Street and Figueroa in La Arcada, a beautiful Courtyard in the heart of Santa Barbara's Cultural District. Waterhouse Gallery is close to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the historic Courthouse and is surrounded by first class restaurants with good parking in nearby City Lots. The Gallery represents some of the finest painters from the Western States, whose work is nationally known and many are members of the California Art Club and Oil Painters of America.
Waterhouse Gallery offers its clients, work by artists who reflect the highest standards of quality and integrity within their chosen fields of painting. Diane & Ralph are proud to personally own work by most of their artists and intend to make that an ever expanding collection. The works shown on their website depict their entire inventory, which is constantly changing.
"When we started in 1984, Realism was extremely popular, and the looser plein-air works were overlooked," says Diane Waterhouse. "We were lovers of the early plein-air movement and took in artwork from young and aspiring plein-air painters, giving them a venue when a lot of galleries had not yet discovered the beauty of plein air painting."
Waterhouse has no formal training in art, but her father was a portrait artist. She is a trustee of the Santa Barbara Historical Society and a board member of Santa Barbara Beautiful.
