Cornelis Ruhtenberg (November 18, 1923 - 2008) [1] was a Latvian-American painter.
Ruhtenberg was born in Riga, Latvia to Hanne Helmsing Ruhtenberg, and Jan Ruhtenberg. [2] [3] [4] She and her two brothers grew up in Latvia, Germany, and Sweden, with the family moving to Berlin in the late 1920s after Jan received a scholarship to Berliner Technische Hochschule. [3] [4] In 1931 her parents divorced, and Ruhtenberg chose to stay with her mother in Berlin while her father moved to Sweden to work. [4] She studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Berlin between 1941 and 1946, during which time she lived with her mother. [2] [3] In 1942, her senior year of high school, she broke both arms in a gymnastics accident and was thus able to avoid joining Nazi youth labor groups; by the time she had recovered, the government was more focused on the war than bureaucracy, and didn't follow up with her. [3] She maintained a low profile for the remainder of the war, despite being an associate of Karl Hofer and Max Kaus, and was not attacked by the Nazi party. [3] While laying low, she focused on her painting. [3] After the war ended, she would scavenge plywood from demolished buildings to paint on. [3] Around the same time, she was named one of Germany's 25 greatest living painters by the Prolog group, and one of only four women on the list. [3]
She immigrated to the United States in April or May 1948, where she reunited with her father, who had lived in the country since 1932. [1] [5] In May of that year, she exhibited 15 paintings at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. [3] Other artists from the center said there was "no explanation for the astonishing talent she has developed under unimaginable conditions". [3]
She lived in and exhibited her art in New York City [6] before moving to Iowa with her husband, Jules Kirschenbaum, whom she had met in 1952 and who taught at Drake University. [5] [7] In 1954 one of her paintings was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. [8] She exhibited art at the Museum of Modern Art three times: in 1955, 1956, and 1962. [9] In 1957 she illustrated a children's book, Straps the Cat, which was written by Claudia Lewis. [10] [11]
Ruhtenberg died in Issaquah, Washington in 2008. [2]
Ruhtenberg primarily painted figures who were "caught in their own contemplative worlds", and who were more loosely and abstracted painted compared to the environments they were set in. [2] [5] She favored muted colors in her works, [2] [5] and tended to paint fairly flat backgrounds. [12]
Three of Ruhtenberg's works are housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [2]
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