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Ruth Peabody
(1898-1966)
Ruth Eaton was born in Highland Park, Illinois, on March 30, 1893. Ruth's earliest art instruction was under her mother, Eleanor Colburn, who was an accomplished artist. She then became a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. Ruth married Hugh Kingman Peabody in 1918 in New Hampshire where the couple remained for five years.
In 1923, the couple, accompanied by her mother, moved to Laguna Beach, California, where mother and daughter embraced the culture of the Laguna Beach art colony, each becoming active member of the Laguna Beach Art Association. The two artists shared a home studio, and although their early work is similar in style, they each created a distinct body of work, with Ruth working in both painting and sculpture. In California, Ruth became a respected art instructor at Laguna Bach High School and privately. During her career, she created sculpture and painted portraits, landscapes, and still lifes, in a post-impressionist style, working in both oil and in watercolor. In the 1930s, as Patricia Trenton writes in Independent Spirits, "She used compositional theories as a basis for more daring explorations, disintegrating recognizable still-life objects and figures by extending and breaking up the diagonal lines of dynamic symmetry. Eventually she created a series of small-scale analytic cubist compositions…" Her work during this period may have been influenced by composition and color theories of fellow Laguna Beach Art Association artist Fredrick John de St. Vrain Schwankovsky. In 1939, the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego presented Ruth's abstractions in a solo exhibition, the first show of its kind by a regional artist. Later, she returned to a more representational style in her paintings. By 1940, she was divorced and living separately from her mother.
In 1932, Ruth's painting, John Jehle, A Ringer was included in the Olympic Art Competition held in conjunction with the 1932 (Summer) Olympic Games, which took place in Los Angeles, with artists from thirty-one nations competing. The large exhibit was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art from July 30 to August 14. That same year she was included in the California Arts & Architecture directory of state-wide artists.
Ruth Eaton Peabody passed away on October 22, 1966, in Laguna Beach, California and is interred with her mother at Fairhaven Memorial Park, Santa Ana, California. Ruth participated in numerous exhibits with several prize-winning works.
Member: Laguna Beach Art Association; California Art Club; San Diego Art Guild.
Exhibited: Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915; Laguna Beach Art Association, 1925-52; Los Angeles County Fair, 1925, 1931; California State Fair, 1926, 1936; West Coast Arts, Los Angeles, 1927; Biltmore Salon, Los Angeles, 1927; San Diego Fine Art Gallery, 1929, 1931, 1937, 1939; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, 1931; California Art Club, 1927-32; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1930-31; Pasadena Art Institute, 1930; Olympiad, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1932; Oakland Art Gallery, 1932; Whittier Art Gallery, 1934; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939.
Works held: Laguna Beach Art Gallery (fountain & medallion of Anna Hills); Laguna Art Museum; Laguna Beach Humane Society (fountains); San Diego Museum of Art; Anaheim High School; Hoag Hospital, Newport Beach; Orange County Museum of Art.
Source:
St. Gaudens, Maurine. "Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California , 1860 to 1960." Print. 2015.
Hughes, Edan M. Artists In California 1786-1940. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Sacramento: Crocker, Art Museum, 2002. N. pag. 2 vols. Print.
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