Dorothy C. Ruddick, Figure, Original Ink on Paper, 1961

Description

Artist: dorothy cole ruddick
(american 1925 - 2010)
signed and dated
support: ink on paper
artwork dimensions: 86 x 67cm … more Artist: dorothy cole ruddick
(american 1925 - 2010)
signed and dated
support: ink on paper
artwork dimensions: 86 x 67cm
period: 1961
offered unframed.

bio

dorothy ruddick was born in winnetka, illinois in 1925. As an undergraduate at radcliffe, she studied art history at the fogg museum and then transferred to black mountain college where she studied with josef albers. She has participated in many group exhibitions over the years including the cleveland museum of art, ohio, and the metropolitan museum of art, new york. Her one-person exhibitions include allentown art museum, pennsylvania; steven harris architects, new york; and most recently at the richard york gallery, new york. Her work is included in many museum collections, including the cleveland museum of art, ohio; brooklyn museum of art, new york; the museum of modern art, new york; and the pennsylvania academy of fine arts, pennsylvania.

in 1998, dorothy ruddick took her long fascination with cloth and clothing in a new direction. Her previous portfolio of work consisted of fiber-based abstractions stitched onto linen using silk, cotton, and wool thread. Now the artist has changed her focus to explore the effect of drapery as it encircles the figure, using papier-mch swathed over forms created with polymer modeling compound. Number ii is the first enlargement in bronze from this series.

ruddick has described the papier-mch and polymer sculptures as lyric poems and the bronze as an epic. In both mediums, the attention to drapery and the definition it lends to the form indicates classical references, but the fragmentation and abstract treatment of the form places the work in a contemporary context. The figure is not idealized, yet it retains an alluring and beautiful form that is defined by the loops and folds of the drapery. Rather than appearing broken at the neck, arms, and legs, the sculpture is smooth, indicating that these parts were never a consideration, moving the object towards the abstract realm.

permanent exhibitions:

charlton hall
stair galleries
braswell galleries
william bunch auctions & appraisals
moma - ny
art institute of chicago
met museum - ny

as a student at radcliffe college, mrs. Ruddick studied art at the fogg museum before transferring to black mountain college in north carolina, where she studied with josef albers. She moved to manhattan in the late 1940s at the beginning of her career, and drew for flair, fleur cowles, mademoiselle, and other magazines. She also designed textiles for the design firm knoll, where her colleagues included isamu noguchi, harry bertoia, george nakashima, and eero saarinen.

in 1950 mrs. Ruddick moved with her husband, bruce ruddick, a psychiatrist and poet whom she had married in december of that year, to montreal, where he was from. The family, which by then included three daughters, moved back to the states in 1957, when they bought a house on marine boulevard in amagansett to spend summers in. Dr. Ruddick died in september 1992.

mrs. Ruddick was born in winnetka, il on july 19, 1925, one of four children of lawrence cole and the former dorothy bushnell hyman. She graduated from new trier high school in winnetka.

on the occasion of her first exhibit at the richard york gallery in manhattan, kevin scott cited mrs. Ruddick's "long fascination with cloth and clothing" and the new direction she took it in not only in her painting but also in her sculpture.

of the draped figures she painted in oil on gessoed panels, he said, "her friezes of female figures pay their respects to classical and renaissance masters even as their truncated forms and ethereal draughtsmanship reveal them to be the work of a very contemporary sensibility."

"ruddick's sculptures echo the greeks in their subject matter," he wrote, "but their delicate craft and fragmentary beauty have as much in common with bonnard, degas, and giacometti as they do with phidias. Moreover, the female figure underlying ruddick's drapery is seldom goddess-like or ideal. The real female body, imperfect but beautiful, is celebrated with understated poignancy."

mrs. Ruddick's work is in many museum collections, including the cleveland museum of art in ohio, the brooklyn museum of art in new york, the museum of modern art and the metropolitan museum of art in new york, the pennsylvania academy of fine arts in philadelphia, and the art institute of chicago.


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