Biography
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Ruth Esserman is an artist-educator, whose studio is located at the Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago, Illinois. She has been a major contributor to secondary curriculum innovation during her career. She has been an adjunct professor at The School of the Art Institute, teacher/chairperson at Highland Park High School Fine Arts Dept. (who established a scholarship to the School of the Art Institute in her honor), instructor at Columbia College Master's Program in Interdisciplinary Arts, Western State College, and SAIC Young Artists' Program in Colorado. She has served as Pres. of Ill. Art Ed. Assoc., NAEA Board of Directors, member of Ill. Arts Council Advisory Panel, juror for the Presidential Gold Medalist in Visual Art, AP Art History juror, and is a "Distinguished Fellow" of IAEA and NAEA.
She was Artist in Residence for Sybil Shearer Dance Company (1967-1970). Her costume designs were shown in the Sybil Shearer film at Newberry Library and at the Arts Club of Chicago 2015). Ms. Esserman designed and assisted in building her summer art studio (1970-1972), a recycled sculpture house in Crested Butte, Colorado, featured on Denver Educational TV and HGTV Extreme Homes. She has been an exhibiting professional member of the Chicago Arts Club since 1964.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous national and international juried shows: Rockford Art Museum Midwest Biennial, Denver Art Museum, Southwest Texas State College (Purchase Award), Minneapolis Art Museum, St. Paul National Drawing Show, Lebeznik Art Museum of Michigan City, Indiana ( “Mapping and Boundaries” ), SFAC juried shows "Beaded Art" and "12x12". NAEA and IAEA Electronic Gallery(1st prize), Art Institute of Chicago (Eisendrath Award), purchase awards by numerous private and public collections (Lake Forest Schools Collection, River Forest-Oak Park Permanent Collections, Art Institute Associates purchase award, Southern Indiana University permanent collection), the juried international drawing biennale of Pilzn, Czech Republic, 2004-2006 (awarded "Best in Show", 2008, work selected among "The Best of the Biennale" (2008) to travel to Italy, Spain ,Chicago, and other selected cities. Her numerous one-woman/group exhibits include: School of the Art Institute, Harper College(featured for "Women Making History Month"), Southern Indiana University, Western State College, Fermilab Gallery, Crested Butte Arts Center, Columbia College Art Gallery( travel drawings from Japan, China, Africa, Europe, Bali).
She has exhibited her work at the invitational “Hanga-ten exhibit. Tokyo National Museum of Art” (2012); Rockford Art Museum Biennial, 2014; The Cliff Dwellers, “New Drawings by Ruth Esserman” (2014); Piper Gallery of Crested Butte Art Center (2014); “Visionary Drawing”, John David Mooney International Gallery (2015); Arts Club of Chicago Annual Exhibits (1965- 2017), East Bank Studio Gallery (2016), Southern Indiana University Museum Gallery (2016), and the Lebeznik Center for the Arts (Michigan City, Indiana) Invitational “Mapping and Boundaries” Exhibit (2017); And most recently: “At 90: New and Renew”, Bridgeport Art Center (2017), and the “88th Member’s Exhibition” at the Arts Club of Chicago (2018).