John Aldrich Ruthven (November 12, 1924 – October 11, 2020) was an American artist best known for his paintings of wildlife.

Biography

Ruthven was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

in November 1924. After serving in the U.S. military in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ruthven attended the

Art Academy of Cincinnati The Art Academy of Cincinnati is a private college of art and design in Cincinnati, Ohio, accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. It was founded as the McMicken School of Design in 1869, and was a department of the U ...

and received his certificate in 1947. He opened a commercial art studio in Cincinnati. His work for clients included the Play-Doh Boy, used in that product's original 1950s advertising. Ruthven's focus, however, was on wildlife painting in the style of

John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...

. In 1960, his painting "Redhead Ducks" won the Federal Duck Stamp competition. Ruthven's wildlife paintings are on display at many museums including the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, and his work was featured in a 1994 retrospective at the

Cincinnati Museum of Natural History The Cincinnati Museum Center is a museum complex operating out of the Cincinnati Union Terminal in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. It houses museums, theater, a library, and a symphonic pipe organ, as well as special traveling e ...

. He designed two pigs for Cincinnati's

Big Pig Gig The Big Pig Gig and Big Pig Gig: Do-Re-Wee were public art exhibits on display in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, in the summers of 2000 and 2012, respectively. Local artists and schools decorated hundreds of full-sized fiberglass pig statues and ...

in 2000. Other artwork includes a Passenger pigeon

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

on the wall of a six-story building in Cincinnati which can be seen in the 2014 documentary ''From Billions To None'' by David Mrazek and Joel Greenberg. The mural is located at 15 8th Street. Ruthven was awarded the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...

in 2004. He later lived on a farm near

Georgetown, Ohio Georgetown is a village (United States)#Ohio, village in Brown County, Ohio, Brown County, Ohio, United States located about 36 miles southeast of Cincinnati. The population was 4,331 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is the count ...

and died in October 2020 at the age of 95.John Ruthven: Modern Audubon and 'a Cincinnati treasure' dead at 95
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Notes

External links

One official site Another official site Big Pig Gig artist entry with links to pig images
1924 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters United States National Medal of Arts recipients American military personnel of World War II People from Georgetown, Ohio Artists from Cincinnati American bird artists Military personnel from Cincinnati Art Academy of Cincinnati alumni 20th-century American male artists {{US-painter-1920s-stub