Ruth Leaf (January 5, 1923 – April 17, 2015) was an American artist and a pioneer in the discipline of

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techni ...

, specifically etching. She studied at the New School for Social Research,

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

and Brooklyn College, and

Atelier 17 Atelier 17 was an art school and studio that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the 20th century. Originally located in Paris, the studio relocated to New York during the years surrounding World War II. It moved back t ...

. While fluent in the methods of woodcut, linoleum, monotype, collagraph and collage, she is most known for her

viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inte ...

etchings. Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, she spent many years teaching in Long Island before moving to

Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside (Los Angeles County), Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city unti ...

where she lived until her death in 2015. Leaf had a long and prolific career; teaching and exhibiting work until her late eighties and producing work up until her death. Her work is included in the collections of The

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

, Ohio's

Butler Institute of American Art The Butler Institute of American Art, located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the museum ...

and Connecticut's

Slater Museum A slater, or slate mason, is a tradesperson who covers buildings with slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low ...

. She authored the book, "Intaglio Printmaking Techniques" (Watson-Guptil Publications) in 1976 while teaching at her namesake studio in Long Island and it remains the textbook used today in many schools.

References

1923 births 2015 deaths Artists from New York City Brooklyn College alumni Atelier 17 alumni 20th-century American women artists American women printmakers 21st-century American women {{US-artist-stub