Ruth Starr Rose

Rose was born in 1887 into an affluent family in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.{{Cite web|title=Ruth Starr Rose|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/ruth-starr-rose-29645|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-09}}{{Cite web|title=Ruth Starr Rose: Illuminating African American Life in 1930-'40s Maryland|url=https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2016/01/features/ruth-starr-rose.html|date=2016|website=Vassar, the Alumnae/i Quarterly|access-date=2020-05-09}} Her family were active abolitionists; her paternal grandfather was William Starr, a timber businessman who had been placed under house arrest by U.S. Marshals for his refusal to comply with the fugitive slave laws.{{Cite web|title=Her Own Brush|url=https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/2015/11/17/reginald-f-lewis-exhibit-explores-ruth-starr-rose-artist-ahead-of-her-time|last=Souza|first=Gabriella|date=2015-11-17|website=Baltimore magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-05-09}}{{Cite web|title=Faces of the Arts: Ruth Starr Rose— An activist through art, she explored Maryland's cultural and historical diversity|url=https://whatsupmag.com/api/content/90750ed1-3735-5829-bd91-060a39f81bac/|last=Lauren|first=Melissa|date=2016-03-04|website=What's Up? Media|language=en-us|access-date=2020-05-09}} On her paternal side she was descended from Dr. Comfort Starr (1589–1659), one of the founders of Harvard College.{{Cite news|date=1914-06-23|title=Eau Claire Girl Married in East, Elaborate Story of Wedding Ruth Starr Told in Eastern Paper|pages=5|work=Leader-Telegram|publisher=Star Democrat of Easton, MD|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33896278/leader-telegram/|access-date=2020-05-09}} Her mother was Ida May Hill Starr, an author and musician. Nathan Comfort Starr (1896–1981) a medieval literature professor, was her brother, and her sister-in-law (married to Nathan) was photographer and art historian, Nina Howell Starr.{{Cite book|last=Lewis|first=C.S.|title=The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963|publisher=Harper Collins, Harper San Francisco|year=2007|isbn=9780060819224|editor-last=Hooper|editor-first=Walter|location=San Francisco, CA|pages=121, 513}}{{Cite news|date=1981-02-16|title=Obituary; Nathan C. Starr, 84, former Williams dean|pages=12|work=The Transcript of North Adams, Massachusetts|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33872395/the-transcript/|access-date=2020-05-09}}

The family moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore to Hope House after the turn of the century, in 1906. Hope House was in the Tilghman and Lloyd families and existed as a plantation, before the Starr family moved in. In 1907, the Starr family remodeled the home.{{cite web|title=National Register of Historic Places Registration: Hope House|url=https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/NR_PDFs/NR-579.pdf|author=Michael Bourne and Cynthia Ludlow|date=1977|publisher=Maryland Historical Trust|access-date=2020-05-08}} The family lived differently than their neighbors, in a racially integrated community where they socialized with their African American neighbors and friends.

In Maryland, she and her mother attended the African American DeShields United Methodist Church in Copperville, Maryland. Many years later, Rose painted a mural of the biblical story of Moses parting the Red Sea in this same church titled, And the Pharaoh’s Army Got Drowned (1940) and it served as a metaphor for breaking away from slavery.{{Cite web|title=Deshields M.E. Chapel (Deshields U.M. Church)|url=https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/Talbot/T-806.pdf|date=2004-04-05|website=Maryland Historical Trust, State of Maryland|access-date=2020-05-08}} Nearby towns of Unionville and Copperville were African American communities, and often where Rose would spend time and paint her subjects.{{Cite web|title=The "Socialite" Whose Art Celebrates the Life of Eastern Shore African Americans Back in the Day|url=https://www.secretsoftheeasternshore.com/ruth-starr-rose/|date=2016-01-17|website=Secrets of the Eastern Shore|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-09}} Rose was an art activist, and it was her familiarity with town residents that allowed her a glimpse into the African American experience.[http://baltimore.suntimes.com/bal-entertainment/7/101/197309/lewis-museum-presents-ruth-starr-roses-prints-and-paintings-of-her-african-american-eastern-shore-neighbors Lewis Museum presents Ruth Starr Rose's prints and paintings of her African American Eastern Shore neighbors] Baltimore Sun Times, January 6, 2016[https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2016/01/features/ruth-starr-rose.html Ruth Starr Rose: Illuminating African American Life in 1930-'40s Maryland] Vassar Quarterly, Winter 2016, Volume 112, Issue 1{{Cite web|title=Lewis Museum presents Ruth Starr Rose's prints and paintings of her African American Eastern Shore neighbors|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/citypaper/bcp-012716-art-ruthstarrrose-20160127-story.html|last=McCabe|first=Bret|date=January 27, 2016|website=Baltimore Sun|access-date=2020-05-09}}

She left Hope House, the family property, to study, just as her mother had, at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. After graduation from Vassar, she enrolled in the Art Students League of New York where she worked with artist Victoria Hutson Huntley, Mabel Dwight, Harry Sternberg, and George C. Miller.

Rose focused her paintings on African American life on the Chesapeake Bay. Rose and her family had long supported civil rights for African American people and they were well connected with black artists and performers, including Paul Robeson, Lead Belly, and Roland Hayes. Rose's subjects included local descendants of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Ross Tubman, a professional sail maker, female crab pickers, and heroic WWII veterans. She portrayed her friends with "dignity and compassion" which was rare in portrayals of people of color during that era.[http://www.lewismuseum.org/special-exhibition/ruth-starr-rose-1887-1965-revelations-of-african-american-life-in-maryland-and Barbara Paca, Ruth Starr Rose (1887-1965): Revelations of African American Life in Maryland and the World], 2015

In 1937, when she was living in Caldwell, New Jersey, she was awarded the Mary Hills Goodwin Prize at the exhibition of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors in New York City for her painting "The Twilight Quartet," a portrait of four African American musicians from the historic settlement of Copperville, Maryland.[http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/01/26/issue.html 13 Prizes Awarded at Women's Art Show] The New York Times, January 26, 1937 In 1957 she was awarded a prize in the graphics category at the exhibition of the National Association of Women Artists.[http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/05/09/issue.html Art: A Game of Styles: Offerings from Abstract to Realist Are Displayed in National Women's Show] The New York Times, May 9, 2957

Rose had a deep regard for African American spirituals. As early as 1956, she was credited by Howard University's Professor James A. Porter, the father of African American art history, for her representation of African American spirituals which he commended her for as being the most compassionate and complete to date. Her ear was moved by their dissonant beauty, and she created illustrations of the songs reflecting how members of her congregation felt as they sang the melodies. Alain LeRoy Locke selected two of her African American spirituals for his pioneering work, The Negro in Art in 1940.Ruth Starr Rose (1896-1965): Revelations of African American Life in Maryland and the World by Barbara Paca and Nina Khrushcheva; 1st edition (October 1, 2015), intro, {{ISBN|978-0996687904}} Her biographers, Barbara Paca and Nina Khrushcheva, have connected her writing and depiction of African American spirituals to the earliest foundation of African American religion in the United States.

Ruth Starr Rose's works have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, and throughout Europe. She was included in the 1947 and the 1951 Dallas Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions of the National Serigraph Society.{{cite web |last1=Dallas Museum of Fine Arts |title=National Serigraph Exhibition, January 15–February 15, 1947 [Checklist] |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth225422/ |website=The Portal to Texas History |access-date=4 January 2020 |language=en |date=1947}}{{cite web |last1=Dallas Museum of Fine Arts |title=National Serigraph Society Exhibition, April 1–May 2, 1951 [Checklist] |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth225445/m1/1/ |website=The Portal to Texas History |access-date=4 January 2020 |language=en |date=1951}}

In 1914, Rose married William Searls Rose, who was from a wealthy family.{{cite news|title=Eau Claire Girl Married in East |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5743065/ruth_starr_rose_18871965/|newspaper=Eau Claire Leader|date=June 23, 1914|page=5|via = Newspapers.com|access-date = July 1, 2016}} {{Open access}} They lived near New York City and adopted two children. They spent summers at Hope House and at the adjoining farm, Pickbourne, which had been given to Rose as a wedding gift.[http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/10/26/94996121.html Ruth Starr Rose is dead: Artist and lithographer] The New York Times, October 26, 1965

Harlem Renaissance artist Prentiss Taylor and Weyhe Gallery's Carl Zigrosser, founder of the Prints Department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, were her lifelong friends and mentors.

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• [http://www.artnet.com/artists/ruth-starr-rose/ Ruth Starr Rose] (examples of her work) on Artnet.com

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Category:1887 births

Category:1965 deaths

Category:People from Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Category:Vassar College alumni

Category:American women painters

Category:Artists from New York City

Category:Artists from Maryland

Category:Artists from Wisconsin

Category:Art Students League of New York alumni