1950s “The Schoolgirl” Oil and Sand Figurative Brooklyn Museum Pink Blue Purple

Sylvia Rutkoff (1919-2011)
“The Schoolgirl”
c.1950s
Oil paint, sand on Masonite
36×48 wood frame
Unsigned
Collection acquired from family estate

Sylvia Weinreb Rutkoff (1919-2011)
Born in Wisconsin in 1919 and painted in New York.

Arts Magazine called her work a “happy wedding of the natural image to the violent immediacy of the expressionist idiom.” She has been described as “vital” by the New York Herald Tribune and as an “outstanding colorist” by the New York Times. Her non-objective paintings of oils, sand and acrylics are done with intensity and simplicity.

She received numerous reviews including this one from the well regarded art critic, Gregory Battock: “Highly sophisticated textures that speak firmly and imaginatively contribute a lot to the Art Brut works by this artist. One thinks of a gay and colorful Dubuffet. Miss Rutkoff offers naive and primitive images in a refreshing and delightful manner”

The cache of paintings by Sylvia Rukoff was recently acquired through her great nephew. This important new discovery of American art is now being offered for sale.

1939 Hunter College in New York City, MA in Painting and Art History

Shows Include:

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Butler Institute of Art, Youngstown, Ohio
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York
International Young Artists Exhibition, Tokyo 1962
Caravan Gallery, New York (two one-woman shows) 1961, 1963
Capricorn Gallery, New York NY
Osaka University Art Gallery, Japan
Loeb Gallery, New York University, New York, NY
Gallimaufry Gallery, Croton-On-Hudson
Women’s Interart Center
Key Gallery, Soho, New York, NY
Edward Williams Gallery, Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey
National Juried Show, Summit Art Center, New Jersey
Creative Gallery, New York, NY
The Riverside Museum, New York, NY

Sylvia taught art in the summers at Lehigh University in the 60s/70s, and was the Director of the Art Workshop in the Graduate School Fairleigh Dickinson University.

She belonged to a group of artists called the Vectors, a group which included the Abstract Expressionists Ben Wilson, Frances Manacher, Rhoda Sklar, and Julius, Mary Shier and others.