Novato School District

Here is a fun search result.  A Novato school district flyer created by someone who must have known Ruth because she is listed in there with some of the most famous painters of all time.  Snippet below:

Brown Thicket I & II

I was very excited when a lady contacted me saying that her husband had commissioned paintings from Ruth in 1968 that hung in the Crown Zellerbach Building in San Francisco.  The panels are called Brown Thicket I & II and I think are the same ones listed in my spreadsheet.  They look like they are seven feet tall and six feet wide which matches what I have in the spreadsheet, taking into account that Ruth often transposed dimensions as Y by X instead of X by Y.  These painting are available for sale and are currently located in Burlingame, CA.  Please contact Gwendolyn Mitchell at gvmitchell@aol.com if interested and copy me at ruthdickerpaintings@gmail.com. 

Here are some pictures of the painting:

Recent Discoveries

I'm glad that I started this blog, I have received a couple more interesting emails here at ruthdickerpaintings@gmail.com.

After visiting Yosemite and telling the people in the art center about the Ruth Dicker painting they had, I was pleased to see it mentioned in a flyer:

The main room houses the building’s most unique feature: a tremendous wooden mural by famed California artist Ruth Dicker (1919-2004).

I also found this sparse mention of an auction that occurred back in 1991.

Scanning flyers and newspaper clippings

In hoping to clean house a little bit, I have been getting rid of duplicates and scanning Ruth Dicker documents.  Check out these show flyers and scanned newspaper clippings.  It is great to read a 46 year old newspaper article that contain paintings that I recognize.

Painting Speadsheet

Ruth Dicker left behind detailed records of all of the paintings she sold but they weren't very well organized.  A few years ago, I went through the documents and created a spreadsheet.  I uploaded the spreadsheet to google docs here and created a form that will allow people to submit additions here.  The starting spreadsheet already has over 800 paintings.

Google News archive search

I read today that google was adding more scanned newspaper archives to its new search.

I did a search for "Ruth Dicker" and set the range to "All dates" and got some cool results.

Although I'm not sure if the results are part of the new feature, this is from the May 27th, 1962 New York Times:

RUTH DICKER (Little Studio): Paintings that reveal a sound artist when the get-rich-quick investments in picturesque and poetic are replaced by more...

There are also interesting results from the San Mateo Times and the Oakland Tribune in the 1960's.  I wonder what else is out there.

Yosemite Art and Education Center

When I was growing up, I always remember hearing about the mural that Ruth Dicker painted in Yosemite.  I heard about how she and her husband Ralph stacked the panels in a pickup truck and drive them to Yosemite.  Not a small feat when the painting totals eight feet tall and twenty-four feet wide.  In the summer of 2007, I finally made it to Yosemite Valley and found the painting in the Yosemite Art and Education Center.  They didn't know much about it, but were very excited to learn.  If you are in the valley, you should check it out.  This link talks a little about the Yosemite Art and Education Center and you can even see a little bit of the painting.  The full think looks like this:

More information is available here.

Another Poster

I found this poster on craigslist today. It is one of the rarer Nut Tree posters from a show in 1979, I'm not sure we have any left so I might have to get it for myself. In case the ad disappears, here is what it looks like:

Posters

Ruth had a number of shows at the Nut Tree in Vacaville, CA and at least three of them had posters produced for the show. Somewhere I have a large collection of these posters, but they also show up frequently on ebay. One ebay seller in particular, Broadway Comics and Cards, usually seems to have at least two of the poster styles for sale.

Here are pictures of the ones currently for sale:

$7.99 sounds like a bargain to me. I will try to find a picture of the third poster as well.

Coffee Tree paintings

I recently discovered a few paintings for sale at askart.com.

The paintings from 1987 actually hung in the dining room at the Coffee Tree Restaurant in Vacaville, CA.  The ones from 2000 were supposed to hang in a new Coffee Tree, but I am not sure they ever did.  One of Ruth's paintings also appeared on the cover of the Coffee Tree's menu.  I will try to add a picture of that menu.  Here is a picture of some of these paintings inside the Coffee Tree dated 8/22/88:

Scanned slides and photos

I am going to have to pace myself a little bit because I don't have too much information to share, but if you want to see a large collection of Ruth Dicker paintings, here are some photos and slides: http://picasaweb.google.com/ruthdickerpaintings.

The late Ruth Dicker

This blog is meant to be a clearinghouse of information on paintings by the late california painter, Ruth Dicker.  It is not a blog owned or written by Ruth Dicker because she unfortunately passed away in late 2004.  It is written by one of her biggest fans and collectors.  For starters, some information on her life is available on wikipedia at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/Ruth_Dicker

Enjoy!