Ruth Pershing Uhler

Ruth Pershing Uhler
BornMarch 21, 1895
Gordon, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMarch 28, 1967 (age 72)
Houston, Texas, U.S.
EducationPainter, teacher, curator

Ruth Pershing Uhler (March 21, 1895 – March 28, 1967) was an American painter, teacher and curator. She was the first curator of education at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.[1]

Early life and education

Uhler was born in Gordon, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Shipman Uhler and Emma Lucetta Nattress Uhler.[2] She moved to Houston, Texas, with her family when she was in her teens. She attended the Moore Institute of Design in Philadelphia.[3][4]

Career

Uhler was a painter and a muralist as a young woman. She painted murals for the Houston Public Library, the Houston City Hall,[5] and the YMCA building in the 1930s.[4] But she is best known for her striking landscape paintings of the American Southwest, possibly inspired by the works of Georgia O'Keeffe.[6] Uhler burned many of her own works in 1940, saying "I only want my best work to survive."[1]

Uhler worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1937 to 1967, and in 1941 became the museum's first curator of education.[1] She taught art classes at the museum,[4][7] and was jokingly described as "curator of everything" for her attention to every detail of the museum's operations.[8] "The great galleries of the Museum of Fine Arts were given hospitable warmth by her quiet, unobtrusive presence," noted a 1967 editorial in the Houston Post.[9] She gave an oral history interview to the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art in 1965.[3]

Personal life and legacy

While she was recovering from tuberculosis in 1935 and 1936, Uhler lived with fellow artist Grace Spaulding John in Santa Fe.[6] John painted a portrait of Uhler in 1932.[10] Uhler died in 1967, from ovarian cancer, in Houston, at the age of 72. Only ten of her paintings are known to survive.[11] In 1968, the Houston Post established the Ruth Pershing Uhler Memorial Scholarship Award in her memory.[12] In 2017, six of her Earth Rhythms series of Southwestern landscapes were exhibited together at the Houston Public Library's Ideson Gallery.[13] One of her Earth Rhythms paintings is at the Dallas Museum of Art.[14] Another, "Growth" (1934), is in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.[15] There is a scrapbook about Uhler, including letters from her, in the Grace Spaulding John papers, on microfilm in the Archives of American Art.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c Michel, Lillian (January 31, 2019). "Ruth Pershing Uhler: A Texas Woman Artist to Know". Dallas Museum of Art. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
  2. ^ 1900, 1910, and 1920 United States censuses, via Ancestry.
  3. ^ a b "Oral history interview with Ruth Pershing Uhler". Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. May 11, 1965. Archived from the original on 2025-04-21. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
  4. ^ a b c "Museum School Opens Sept. 24". The Houston Post. 1945-09-16. p. 32. Retrieved 2025-06-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Harwood, Buie (1993). Decorating Texas : decorative painting in the Lone Star State from the 1850s to the 1950s. Internet Archive. Fort Worth : Texas Christian University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-87565-113-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  6. ^ a b Independent spirits : women painters of the American West, 1890-1945. Internet Archive. Berkeley : Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with the University of California Press. 1995. p. 204. ISBN 978-0-520-20202-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  7. ^ "Museum Art School Opens September 21". The Houston Chronicle. 1942-08-30. p. 37. Retrieved 2025-06-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Phelan, Charlotte (1957-11-24). "Any Museum Job is Ruth Uhler's Forte". The Houston Post. p. 68. Retrieved 2025-06-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Ruth Pershing Uhler". The Houston Post. 1967-03-30. p. 26. Archived from the original on 2025-06-21. Retrieved 2025-06-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Patterns: Portrait of Ruth Pershing Uhler". Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
  11. ^ "Antiques Roadshow FYI : Missing Masterpieces". PBS. Archived from the original on 2025-06-21. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  12. ^ "Art Scholarship". The Houston Post. 1968-03-22. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-06-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Houston We Have History: The Houston LGBT Artists Before Stonewall Issue" Archived 2025-06-05 at the Wayback Machine HETAG: The Houston Earlier Texas Art Group Newsletter 33(May 2019).
  14. ^ "Earth Rhythms". Dallas Museum of Art. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
  15. ^ "Growth - Ruth Pershing Uhler". Google Arts & Culture. Archived from the original on 2023-03-16. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
  16. ^ "Grace Spaulding John papers". Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 2025-06-21. Retrieved 2025-06-21.

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