Ruth Schloss (1922-2013) – Collection of Drawings

Ruth Schloss (1922-2013) – Collection of Drawings
32 Drawings by Ruth Schloss (1922-2013).
Watercolor, pen, charcoal, India ink and felt pen on paper.
Most of the drawings are individual or group portraits. Other drawings depict animals, views and workers at work. Two of the drawings are signed "Ruth Schloss" (Hebrew).
Ruth Schloss (1922-2013) was born in Nuremberg and immigrated to Palestine with her family in 1935. At sixteen she began her studies at Bezalel, then joined the group of founders of Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan. Schloss devoted her talents to the art and printing enterprises of the kibbutz movement, working as an illustrator for the "Mishmar Liladim" newspaper, and as a book cover designer for "Sifriyat Poalim". From ca. 1950 to 1952 she studied art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, and after returning to Israel she left her kibbutz, due to the rift in the Kibbutz Movement. Schloss was a member of the Communist Party and her paintings, in the style of Social Realism, often conveyed a socialist message of exposing societal power relations and class distinctions. She painted the weaker members of society – downtrodden women, hungry children, workers and residents of transit camps. Later, she turned to the lives of women, to the helplessness of birth and the decline of old age – all of which she painted with the sensitivity of a woman seeing human-beings rooted in their surroundings, as the poet Nathan Zach wrote of her – "her motto remained the same over the years. Life itself. Without any embellishment".
Approx. 20.5X14.5 to 25X35 cm. Good overall condition. Stains. Few tears and small open tears along the edges of some leaves. Pieces of paper for reinforcement on verso of one work, at the corners.
Literature:
1. Broader Horizons, 120 Years of Israeli Art, from the Ofrat Collection to the Levin Collection. Selected Works, Part II, by Gideon Ofrat. Jerusalem: Vienna-Jerusalem Foundation for Israeli Art, 2013. Hebrew.
2. Ruth Schloss, Retrospective. Curator: Tali Tamir. Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod website. Hebrew.