Ruth Ann Fredenthal was born in Detroit (Michigan) in 1938 to artist parents; watercolor painter, David Fredenthal, and hand weaver, Miriam Kellogg, who met as students at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art. As a tiny child she knew she was a painter by the age of 3.

Classical music moved her deeply as her parents played records of Bach, Prokofiev, Debussy, Brahms etc. for her at bedtime when she was a baby, and her mother played the piano. Living in the countryside of New England, she spent her days playing out in nature, and Fredenthal did multitudes of drawings and paintings of animals and nature which she combined with the intensity of her feeling for classical music.  

A little later, her mother gave her and her brother Robin, two books of reproductions of master paintings mostly from the Renaissance. Thrilled by the structures and imagination of these images, she then added classical structures to her childhood art works. The images of paintings by Titian, Raphael, Memling, Poussin etc, in these two books, along with the classical music and experiences with nature and animals, became the most profound influences in Fredenthal's childhood art that continues until the present time.

After her boarding school graduation, she went to Bennington College where she studied mostly with Paul Feeley and Tony Smith. Bennington attracted many advanced artists and critics like David Smith and Lawrence Alloway that Fredenthal became friends with. While at Bennington, she also won the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art grant. She became especially close to Paul Feeley whose use of curved shapes was similar to her own. He then became the greatest living artistic influence on her painting.

From Bennington, she won a Fulbright fellowship in Painting to Florence, Italy, and spent a year there. In Italy, she was finally able to see the real paintings, mostly from the Italian Renaissance, whose reproductions had influenced her art so deeply as a child.

Since the very beginning of her career, she preferred the classic style rather than contemporary art, and she also favors the more traditional master oil painting technique on linen. The investigation of the micro tonalities of pure color, and their subtle relationships within a highly complex color field, has always represented a central point of her practice. Her technique and research process is meticulous but at the same time deeply felt: from the size of the canvas, a square; to the material, a special unbleached Belgian linen used worldwide by conservators in museums to reline master paintings; and the way she paints the colors with small fine bristle brushes.

The final outcome is astonishing. The painted surface, produced by several opaque layers of heavily mixed colors seems to disappear, opening up an endless undefined space for reflection and interpretation, as was also pointed out by Giuseppe Panza, a great admirer of Fredenthal's paintings, in Ricordi di un collezionista.

Today, Ruth Ann Fredenthal lives and works in New York. Her artworks are exhibited in many relevant public collections: the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,  Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Museo di Villa Panza, Varese, Museo Cantonale, Lugano, and others.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

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1980

The Clocktower; 10-year Retrospective, Institute for Art & Urban Resources, PS 1, New York

1981

Small Paintings, Park-McCullough House, North Bennington, Vermont

1989

Vera Engelhorn Gallery, New York

1993

Recent Paintings, New York, Stark Gallery

1994

Works on Paper 1974-77, Stark Gallery, New York

1995

New Paintings, Stark Gallery, New York

1998

Recent Paintings, Stark Gallery, New York

1999

Ruth Ann Fredenthal. Paintings, Galleria Valeria Belvedere, Milano, Italia

2000-2001

Ruth Ann Fredenthal Paintings, Borromini Arte Contemporanea, Ozzano Monferrato, Italia

2002

New Paintings, Chelsea, New York, Stark Gallery

2004

Le Forme del Silenzio, Aganahuei Arte Contemporanea, Alba, Italia

2008

Ruth Ann Fredenthal. Quadri, ArteSilva Contemporanea, Seregno (Milano), Italia

2008-2009

Ruth Ann Fredenthal. Quadri, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venezia, Italia

2019

Ruth Ann Fredenthal - Paintings, Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

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GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

1972

Suffolk Museum and Carriage House, Long Island City, New York

1973

Contemporary Reflections, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT

Work from the Aldirich Collection, Herbert Lehman College, City University of New York, New York

Women Choose Women, The New York Cultural Center, New York

1974

Bykert Downtown, New York,

Color-Four Artists, Landmark Gallery, New York,

1975

Outdoors- Indoors, Recent Work, Buecher & Harpsichords, New York

Collectors of the Seventies – Part III. The Collection of Milton Brutten & Helen Herrick, P.S. 1, New York, The

Institute for Art and Urban Resources at the Clocktower, New York

1976

Buecker & Harpsichords, New York

1977

S Curves and Ellipses, Buecker & Harpsichords, New York

Collection in Process, (Collection Milton Brutten & Helen Herrick), Moore College of Art,Philadelfia

1978

In the Realm of the Monochromatic, a cura di Michael Walls, Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York;

Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago

State University of New York at Stony Brook, a cura di Lawrence Alloway, New York

Bertha Urdang Gallery, New York

1979

Small Works, a cura di Ann Lauterbach, Art Latitude Gallery, New York,

1980

Buecker & Harpsichords, New York

1981

The Big Picture: Major Paintings, Buecker and Harpsichords, New York

1982

Buecker & Harpsichords, New York

537 Artworks, Works on Paper, New York

Made in New York, Andre Zarre, New York

Studio 99 Gallery, West Hampton Beach, New York

1984

AIR Gallery, New York

1985

AIR Gallery, New York

Attitude Art Gallery, New York

1986

Twelve Plus, PMW Gallery, Stamford, CT

1987

Rigor, a cura di Stephen Westfall, John Good Gallery, New York

1988

Underknown in New York, Hunter College, Leubsdorf Gallery, New York

1990

Vera Engelhorn Gallery, New York

1992

Painting, Stark Gallery, New York

1992-93

Avanti Galleries, New York

1994

On Paper, The Sculpture Center, New York

1995

Donazione Panza di Biumo, Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, Svizzera,

1996

La Collezione Panza di Biumo. Artisti degli anni '80 e '90, Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento

e Rovereto, Palazzo delle Albere, Trento, Italia

1997

Drawing from Life, Stark Gallery, New York

Satellite Gallery, Bridge, Long Island City, New York,

1998-2003

La Collezione Panza di Biumo. Artisti degli anni '80 e '90,Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio, Italia

1999

Then and Now, a cura di Theresa Chong (catalogo), The Work Space, New York

2000

La Collezione Panza di Biumo, Museo Litta Panza, Villa Menafoglio, Varese, Italia

2002

La collezione Panza di Biumo, 10 anni di prestito, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e

Rovereto, nuovo MART, Rovereto, Italia

2004

Italia, Storie di Colore, a cura di Angela Madesani, Villa Lagarina (Trento)

Lucidamente, a cura di Giorgio Bonami, Porto Venere, Italia

2005

Living Gray, Kari Ernst Osthaus-Museum der Stadt Hagen, Hagen, Germania,

2008

The Panza Collection: An Experience of Color & Light, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY,

2010

Omaggio a Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, Museo d'Arte di Lugano, Lugano, Svizzera

2013-2014

In Daylight – Small Paintings, Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA

2015

The Perception of the Future: The Panza Collection at Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Museo Civico

di Palazzo della Penna, Perugia, Italia

2017

COLOR as attitude. Ruth Ann Fredenthal, Winston Roeth, Phil Sims, Osart Gallery, Milan

2018

AS UNDER THE EVENING LIGHT, Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

2018 - 2019

DUE O TRE DIMENSIONI INFINITE, Ruth Ann Fredenthal, Riccardo Guarneri, Lucio Pozzi, Saverio Rampin,

a cura di Davide Ferri, Michela Rizzo Gallery,Venezia

2019

BY THE LIGHT: A SUMMER EXHIBITION IN PHASES, Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia