Set to be one of the first to receive a letter from our new King Charles III congratulating her for her 100th birthday, is our very own Mosman local, and world-renowned artist, Ruth Faerber.
Ruth was born in 1922 in Sydney, to a Jewish family of Russian, Australian and Scottish ancestry. She has had a long fulfilling life as a mother, wife, teacher, and globally recognised artist.
Encouraged by her father, Ruth was destined for the arts from a young age after attending class with teacher and printmaker Gladys Gibbons at Ravenswood Methodist Ladies College. She went on to play a pivotal role in pioneering lithography practice in Australia, before developing a unique form of paper relief sculpture.
Ruth was represented in numerous prize competitions, including the Archibald, Eynne and Sulman Prizes, with works in various mediums, including print, landscape, portrait painting, and mural design.
She has had over 40 solo exhibitions in galleries all over the world and throughout her long creative career, spanning more than 60 years, has reinvented herself numerous times.
During WWII, Ruth worked at the Market Printery as a junior commercial artist, printing war communication for the public and soldiers alike.
Towards the end of the war, she attended the Jewish festival of Purim, and met ‘the most handsome she’d ever seen’ – Hans Faerber, who in 1946, became her husband.
Hans and Ruth went on to have two children, Esther and David. Ruth loved being a mother but continued to follow her passion and would create in her studio through the night while the children slept.
During the 1960s, Ruth had her first exhibition at The Little Gallery in Bligh Street, Sydney. She remembers the 60s as ‘a heady time to be an artist – new beginnings to be bold and spread your wings’.
Ruth also helped establish with three other women artists Sydney Printmakers, which is still very present 50 years later and taught at the Willoughby Art Centre at this time.
In her own words, Ruth has ‘always been driven by curiosity’, and over the following decades she studied and evolved her art around the world, adopting and innovating new styles of art. She continued to create well into her 90s.
Ruth’s passion for life and the unknowable continues to this day, and she is widely recognised as an indomitable force and a true paper visionary in the history of Australian art.
Today, she enjoys the sunrises of Balmoral Beach, the ‘cheeky’ cockatoos, which come to her to be fed every morning, and the wonderful people in her life, whom make her feel so fulfilled.
Ruth says she always had a smile on her face throughout life, along with positive thinking, and she attributes her art and the way she transcends or transforms herself when creating for her good health and long life.
Ruth celebrated her birthday with a private party at her home with friends and family on the 9 October, followed by a formal gathering on 10 October at The Art Gallery of NSW, organised by librarian Steve Miller.
She believes, “That there is a warmth in life, not just in people but in birds and bees and in everything that grows. And the idea that one can go through life and have troubles and overcome them, that’s the biggest gift of them all. If you can continue to be a fighter for what you truly believe in, then you will be right.”
We wish Ruth a very happy birthday and hope she enjoys this wonderful milestone.
By Laura Waddilove
