RUTH WALL

Ruth Wall was an Abstract Expressionist painter who also loved to draw the figure. In addition, she produced an astonishing body of lithographs which were the subject of a book Love of the Stone, which accompanied an exhibition at the Art Exchange Gallery in San Francisco in 2007. Wall exhibited but was indifferent to exposure. It was the making of the work which engaged her. Ruth was a San Franciscan in spirit and soul residing for 55 years in NorthBeach.

Ruth Wall was born in Wyoming and later moved to Utah to a homestead on an Indian reservation area, where she has her earliest memories. She learned to ride a horse almost as early as she could walk, and later worked in the fields. She graduated from school at 16, left home for California and never returned other than for brief visits. She started her university studies at the age of 17, graduated at 20, and became a high school teacher at the age of 21.

She moved to Los Angeles during WWII where she took an engineering course and became an Army inspector of materials at war plants. She was hired as an inspector in the Women’s Air Force and she ferried planes between the manufacturing points to the training airfields. From there she departed for Northern California to obtain her pilot’s license. Wall entered service as a WAC in 1944 and became an officer and worked in a military hospital until 1949.

It was not until 1950 that Wall pursued her interest in art, at which time she enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). She studied with David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Edward Corbett and Hassel
Smith until 1952. Shortly thereafter, Wall departed for Paris where she studied, painted and actively exhibited her work at galleries including Galerie Huit, 9e Salon des Realites Nouvelles and Exposition Hotel Drouot. The Crocker Museum in Sacramento and the San Jose Museum hold her work.

ources include:
Auction Results; Ruth Wall
SFGate http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-03/news/17466574_1_abstract-expressionist-painter-san-francisco-artinstitute-fine-arts

Submitted by James Snidle, James Snidle Fine Arts

Source: www.askart.com