Ruth Dicker in Artforum - December 1963

It looks like Artforum has been doing some more indexing of their magazine.  From December 1963:

Ruth Dicker, Group Show
ART UN­LIMITED

Mixed media landscapes, and sculptures and prints by West Coast artists are shown in this little down­stairs gallery which has recently ex­panded to include a penthouse sculp­ture garden.
Miss Dicker is an expert craftsman and a diligent researcher, more inter­ested at the moment in textural effects than in subject matter. Using landscape as a point of departure, she abstracts such popular themes as forest glades and lonely waterfronts, shrouding them in luminous pearly grays and eerie night purples. In open light and full color, her works become decorative and harsh. Her strongest point at the

This is likely the flyer from that show or perhaps another show at the same gallery.

Possible sighting in North Bay

Sometimes, when looking at open house photos, I see pictures that look like Ruth Dicker paintings.  I've reached out in the past and they weren't matches.  This one just popped up on the market and I am pretty confident that it is a Ruth Dicker painting because of the frame, the tree structure, the orange sun, and the slight shading around the branches, that is probably where the rice paper is.  I need to try to figure out how to reach out to the owner to confirm.

Mid Century Modern

A fan sent along a picture of his Mid Century Ruth Dicker painting, nicely situated with some ceramics and a nice dark credenza.  Here it is:

He inspired me to post some other Mid Century examples from the slide archive.  There's a lot more, also.  I don't know where most of these are so if you have one, drop us a line.

Aspen from 1960

An oldie, but a goodie!  These pictures were shared with the blog a while back, but got lost in the shuffle.  This is a nice piece, all the way back from 1960, which is when Ruth really began painting and showing in galleries.  As with many of Ruth's paintings now, it has moved onto the next generation to enjoy.

I just love it when people go looking for more information, find the blog, and share their pieces!  Keep it up!

Almond Blossoms and Mustard on Ebay

Here's a really nice piece available for sale on Ebay, currently:

It is titled Almond Blossoms and Mustard and it was painted in 1981.  It appears to be for sale in Arizona now, but was originally located in Carmel for many years.  A few more paintings came up for sale in Carmel recently, so I wonder if this one is related.

A Visit to the de Saisset Museum

Today, I visited the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University.  I thought that Ruth Dicker had shown work there and won some awards in the early 1960's, but I didn't remember the details.  It was a beautiful campus and and nice museum and some of the people there were eager to help and looked up Ruth Dicker in the computer.  They found this:

Third Annual St. Jude Juried Exhibition
September 28 - October 28, 1963
The Third Annual St. Jude Exhibition is judged by Michele Cascella, noted Italian post-impressionist, Elizabeth M. Polley, Bay Area art critic and editor, and William H. Weber, director of special art projects for the San Francisco Chronicle.  The top prizes were awarded to individual artists of four oil paintings.  Lundy Siegriest of Oakland was awarded the first prize of $600 for Summer Reflections, which is anticipated to become a part of the museum collection.  Louisa M. Jenkins was awarded second place honors for Black Madonna, third place Honors went to Ruth Dicker for Departure, and fourth place was awarded to George Neago Jr. On exhibit are fifty-five entries ranging from paintings, sculpture, and mosaics as well as twenty-five invitational works.

I thought I knew which painting was Departure, but I was thinking of the wrong piece.  I went looking through my slides and found it here.  I don't know where this painting currently resides, but it is a beautiful piece, very different from later tree works.  I looked up some older bios and they mention multiple awards from the de Saisset Museum.

I remembered this other piece, Flower Girl, which says it won first and second prize from the de Saisset Museum in 1962.  That doesn't seem to match exactly what they had in their computers, but interesting nonetheless.  This style of label is much later than 1962 so it could have been a transcription or other error.

Update: Fixed broken links.

Aspen Yellow Grove

Here's a great story from a Ruth Dicker fan.  She worked at a business in Colorado where a Ruth Dicker painting hung for many years.  When the company down-sized and moved to a smaller location she tracked the painting to auction and now she continues to enjoy it!