Life and Work of Ruth Lewin

Lewin was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she lived until she married artist Charles Seliger in 1948. They were introduced at an art opening at the Gallery Neuf. The person who introduced them thought that the two young artists might want to have a joint art show. The show did not come to fruition, but together they found an exit from their respectively troubled home lives. Lewin and Seliger remained married until Lewin's passing in 1975.

Much has been written about married artist couples. The book "Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art" by Mary Gabriel presents a thorough and engaging view of the lives of woman who became famous artists in their own right. The general postulation is that it is not possible for a woman to have a family and to be an artist. That might be true if the measure of success is the degree of public awareness of one's art. In the case of Lewin, having a family and being an artist were complimentary, not in competition.

Much has also been written about the degree to which married artists influence each other's work. The works produced by Lewin and the works produced by Seliger bare minimal visual resemblance. What they do have in common is a deep commitment to their respective ways of seeing the world, and the different but nevertheless intimate, intensive, detail-oriented techniques they utilized in their respective pursuits.

While notoriety was not an overt pursuit of Lewin’s, she did find recognition starting as early as high school when, in 1940 at the age of sixteen, she won the first prize award for a linoleum block print [C. Howard Hunt Linoleum Block Print Division, Strathmore Paper Co. Supplementary Award, National Scholastic Awards]. Lewin would continue to master print making and in the years to follow would produce a wide range of wood cut and linoleum cut prints.

During and after the World War II years Lewin would find work at the Manhattan offices of J.A. Maurer & Andrews and Clark & Buckley, where she drafted plans for mechanical components and construction projects. It is not clear where she learned drafting, but is most likely at the Art Students League. Interestingly, Lee Krasner also learned drafting at the League, and for a short time she also worked drafting plans [Ninth Street Women, p. 114]. While at the Art Students League, Lewin studied under Sol Steinberg and Will Barnet. Barnet invited Lewin to join the then nascent Indian Space Painters where she was one of only three women who participated.

Lewin lived most of her married life in an apartment in Mount Vernon with Seliger. Ten years after their marriage she would give birth to their son Robert and soon after Mark. The warm and eclectic apartment was filled with a vibrant community of friends, books, art supplies, and drafting tools. In fact, it was impossible find a normal ruler. If one needed to measure anything then it meant using a three-sided architectural ruler. Lewin's sons would entertain themselves by reading books about type fonts and drawing their own pictures using triangles, straightedges, French curves, and adjustable-width ink-filled ruling pens.

Lewin often said that she was color blind and this was the reason that many of her works are often monochromatic or use somber, earthy colors. True color blindness in women is rare, and we will never know definitively if Lewin was truly color blind. We can only presume that her color choices were motivated by her artistic vision.

In the 1960's, with both sons in school, Lewin took advantage of her newfound daily time to design the stage sets for the semi-professional fund-raising musical productions put on each year at Mount Vernon High School. Always thinking creatively, Lewin made innovative use of rear-projection. By today's standards this might seem low tech, but Lewin was able to create visually elaborate scenes at low cost by projecting optically enlarged acetate images of her designs towards the back of a screen. Her technique meant that the designs had to be created backwards so that they would face forward when viewed by the audience. She designed the sets for musicals including The Mikado, Kiss Me Kate, The King & I, and Guys & Dolls.

Also in the 1960's, Lewin founded Follie Associates along with a business partner. The small company decorated mass-produced household objects in the style of hand-crafted folk art. Wood picture frames, tissue box covers and waste paper baskets were painted with a base coat, and then die-cut images of flowers, insects, and even faces were hand-applied and sealed in layers of Gesso. The company  was pioneering for the time: it was woman-led and employed women from across the Mount Vernon community.

Lewin's cancer was detected in mid-1972. In the subsequent years as she fought her illness, she discovered new inspiration for a spectacular body of paintings. Her late work pulled from her drafting skills, her way of seeing the world in bent and distorted ways, her experience with stage set design, and her urban roots. These paintings represent a unique view of earth-tone cities and cityscapes, of urban grittiness and mechanical elegance, all with a vitality of  human accomplishment and rebirth proclaiming that life goes on.