Ruth Strong Campbell

Born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, Ruth Strong Campbell, NMWS (1911-2001) as a child moved with her family to a small ranch in Evergreen, Colorado. After spending her formative years in Evergreen and later Denver, she married and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she was thoroughly enchanted by the Southwestern culture and landscape. She spent many hours at the Museum of Fine Art studying and absorbing the work of many first-rate local and visiting artists who exhibited there. She began exhibiting in non-juried shows then in juried shows; the Museum sold some of her work.

Largely self-taught excepting isolated course work at the University of New Mexico and the University of Albuquerque, Ruth Campbell attended workshops by Robert E Woods, George Post, Millard Sheets and others; her work is in the permanent collections of the Albuquerque Museum and the Wesleyan Center at ENM University. She taught at Heights Community Center, Art Center School, Albuquerque Public Schools' recreation program and held workshops in Lake City and Kremmling, Colorado. She was in many arts and craft fairs, one¬artist library shows and designed Christmas cards for Easter Seals and the Multiple Sclerosis societies. Much of her work was purchased by private collectors.

Mrs. Campbell's most important instruction was through critiques from Olive Rush, muralist, watercolorist, and illustrator of Santa Fe. Rush had studied under Howard Pyle, the teacher of many famous artists. Rush was a Quaker lady of very strong conviction who taught that rules should not be allowed to stifle the imagination and she agreed with and quoted Robert Henri, "Don't paint for juries.” Ruth considered Rush to be her mentor.

Ruth Campbell was especially fond of the impressionist school of painters and was drawn to the work of the American impressionists, especially the women. While capable of exact realism, her natural style tended toward a looser interpretation of the world. Trees and plants were a favorite subject represented here by the triptych of common plants gone to seed. Much of her work had broad philosophical undertones inviting the viewer to think beyond the immediate subject image; her work often included the associated unseen aspects of the subject matter as well as what was apparent the eye.