Ruth Shany

Jews in Shanghai

Ruth Shany's family was among the last in pre-war Germany to flee the Nazi terrors as an intact family. In 1939 they made their way to Shanghai, where a small community of European Jews was beginning to settle. Ruth's family had moved several times during her childhood, first fleeing the Nazis in 1933 to Prague, then returning to Germany as they hoped for more stability, and then finally leaving again, penniless, for Shanghai. The insecurities and instability that Ruth experienced during her early years would stay with her throughout her life, and would influence her art and her choice of Tzfat as the place where she chose to eventually establish her gallery.

It was in China that Ruth began to study painting. The Chinese art of painting on silk intrigued her, and while working as a waitress to support herself in a small Shanghai Japanese restaurant, she began to learn Chinese silk painting under the tutelage of Japanese art professor Taishi Nishio. Ruth's talents were evident, and during her years in Shanghai, she began to develop her painting style, incorporating rich colors on silk.

Ruth married a diplomat, and spent many years traveling with him and their children. He was posted to Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the family also lived for a time in Geneva and Paris. Ruth's artistic talents have passed to the next generation -- her son, Daniel Wachsmann, is a film producer, and her daughter, Lana Laor, is an accomplished artist in her own right, with a Tzfat gallery not far from her mother's.

Silk Painting in Tzfat

In the '70s, Shany's paintings, with its fusion of Japanese and Chinese-inspired style, Jewish content and modern stylistic impressions began to take form. Her paintings are bold and colorful, but the Chinese influence is quite evident in the muted style in which she blends colors and textures to create the other-worldly effects that she strives for. Shany's subject matter is extensive, ranging from pictures which represent her adopted town, Tzfat, to nature in Northern Israel, scenes of floating clouds, sunrises and moon-rises and her most Chinese-inspired works, detailed flowers and leaves.

When Shany chose to do a series, however, she was inspired by the story of Creation in the Bible, and it is, by her own admission, her favorite work. A vacation at the Dead Sea was the catalyst - Shany watched the sunrise over the Moab mountains early one morning, and after re-reading the Biblical verses that described the Creation of the World, she decided to paint a series of silk-paintings which illustrate her interpretation of God's Creation of the world. Each painting is accompanied by the appropriate Biblical verse, and the eight paintings reflect the wonder that she experienced early that morning at the Dead Sea.

Ruth Shany's gallery is on Yud Zion Street in the Artists Quarter, near the Rimonim Hotel. She can be contacted at r_shany@artists.co.il