Ruth Van Sickle Ford

Ruth Van Sickle Ford (1897–1989), watercolorist and beloved, no-nonsense teacher, used to quip “if a woman has a desire to do something, she should do it.” A student of George Bellows and a classmate of Walt Disney, Van Sickle Ford was born in Aurora, Illinois and first studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts which, in 1937, she purchased, becoming its president and director (her students there became used to her lack of tolerance for mediocrity — they’d not infrequently hear her ask whether they needed glasses, because their colors were all wrong). In 1960, after establishing herself as a painter of vibrant watercolor portraits, interiors, landscapes, and cityscapes, she was admitted as the first female member of the Palette and Chisel Academy. She traveled extensively through Mexico and the Caribbean and, at a time when it wasn’t common, always wrote out her name with a surname included (though admittedly this was at least in part to distinguish herself from a local sex worker named Ruth Ford).

In short, Van Sickle Ford was a woman who followed her own advice.