Ruth Taylor Jacobson
studied painting and etching at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, 1959 - 63, where, among other awards, she won first prize in figure drawing. Over the years, she was involved in painting and print making and exhibited widely.
Many years later, she was attracted to stained glass, completing an advanced postgraduate course at Central St. Martin's School of Art, London, where she was awarded a Fellowship in Stained Glass, 1991–92.
"I have always loved painting and drawing people both real and imaginary. For many years I worked in etching, exploring the qualities of line and texture, luminous highlights and intense shadow. In stained-glass I combine these with glowing colour, and the strong, expressive rhythms of the lead-lines. Stained glass has long been used to convey a spiritual message in places of worship but nowadays, it is effectively used to bring colour and atmosphere, joy and movement to all kinds of secular buildings, for which I am happy to create work.
I am haunted by the destiny of my people, and in my most personal work, I create a mosaic of images exploring my Jewish identity. I am inspired by ritual objects and symbols, by our literature whose power and poetry resonates through the ages, by the drama of events in history. Above all, I seek to commemorate people for whom there is no other monument".
In 2001 she was elected Associate Member of the British Society of Master Glass Painters.
If you have any enquiries, please feel free to contact me at enquiries@ruthjacobson.com, or use the form below:
Testimonials
“Ruth Jacobson’s portraits assert the solidity of the flesh in warm, passionate colour....even her flowers are assertive and palpable, like Sylvia Plath’s tulips, which with their sensuous intensity, seemed to steal the air she breathed.”
“Ruth Jacobson looks at her own face in the mirror as she looks at the faces of others - with astonishment and compassion - and asks the unanswerable question:
”Is that who I am after all?””
“There is a spontaneity about her portraits that gives a penetrating interpretation of the personality of her sitters.”
“The exhibition of paintings, ‘La Comedie Humaine’ at Camden Arts Centre, testifies to her intelligence, imagination and feeling. She finds her inspiration in the human condition, investing her imagery with an emotional warmth that is rooted in her Jewish heritage.”
“I loved the show. The Celebration panel is great art indeed. I think you must exhibit, Ruth T.J., in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, and get a really good commission from a patron there.
Do not doubt your ability to fulfill it when it comes your way. Your method of painting is a very spiritual method - not unlike the way Wilhelmina Geddes let light into her windows, though she was a far from spiritual person, admittedly: but she is the greatest painter of glass who has ever lived, in my opinion.”
“It was a joy to see in this work the continuation of that most vital part of the great ongoing Jewish visual tradition, true feeling combined with a passionate respect for the past.”