“I just see something that to my eye is beautiful and I try to pass it on. I paint to please myself!”
Ruth Squibb was born in1928, born in Portsmouth in the United Kingdom and spent her childhood in Glasgow. Her father worked in the Admiralty and was posted to Hong Kong before WW2. From there the family moved to South Africa where she completed her education in Johannesburg. Her earliest memories are of family visits to Portsmouth, walks in the dockyards and Sundays spent with her father visiting the National Art Gallery in London. Today she lives and works in the Cape. Ruth feels that her approach to oil painting is rooted in her English sensibility. Pragmatic and direct she paints weathered and seasoned land, harbour and city scenes with no attempt to romanticize the content.
Respected by collectors and artists alike for the integrity of her work, she is known as a “Painter of Light”, favourite subject of the impressionist painters. Squibb completes preliminary sketches and photographs the chosen subject noting the mood colour and compositional details. The final work is completed in the studio. This often imbues her land, sea and cityscapes with a sense of nostalgia or ‘déjà vu’ as the viewer revisits the site at a significant time.
Recently the artist has concentrated more upon complex sculpture in fondue cement. Women sit on a bench; children caper or sit listening to a story being read. The interrelationship between the figures is complex and harmonious.