Ruth - Easter Morning

1937
Simboli-McFadden Collection
Oil on Canvas      36" x 29.5"        Signed 'Ray Simboli' (lower left corner)     Inv 1002

Ruth Meider, here dressed in her Easter-morning best, was a neighbor of Raymond Simboli when he lived on Addison Street.

While Simboli effortlessly captures the youth and vitality of the young lady in this work, in addition to this skilled visual representation, he also displays a keen interest in tonal modulations and the mark-marking process intrinsic to the contemporary sensibility of art. The plain background and her simple gray suit provide a blank canvas for the exploration of painterly effect, and the only area in which Simboli disguises his brush strokes to create the illusion of visual reality is in the porcelain-like face of his subject. Her serene beauty is all the more startling through this contrast here to the energy of the surrounding paintwork