Ruth Zimerman (1912 – 1968)

Oil Tanks, Alameda Street, Los Angeles, c. 1930-33, watercolor on paper, 14 ¼ x 21 ¼ inches (image), inscribed verso: “watercolor by Ruth Zimmerman 1912 – 1968 / Practice work for school (LA City College or Chouinards L.A.) about 1930 – 33 / Storage Tanks near Alameda Street, Los Angeles”

$850

Ruth K. Zimmerman was born in Los Angeles on October 2, 1912, to Caroline Lisette Fritz and Frederick Martin Zimmerman. She graduated from Hollywood High School in 1930 after focusing her efforts on art and music. Zimmerman then studied art for two years at Los Angeles Junior College where she contributed costume designs for theater productions and at the Chouinard Art Institute. She continued to live in Los Angeles during the Depression Era and in 1937 married fellow artist and schoolmate from Hollywood High School, Conrad C. Capune. He was a member of the Los Angeles Art Directors Club and made a living as a commercial artist, including working on the periphery of the film business. The 1940 census lists Zimmerman as a freelance artist, earning $500 income in 1939. In 1942, Zimmerman gave birth to a son, Laurence Conrad Capune. Zimmerman and Capune divorced sometime in the mid-1940s. After that time, it appears Zimmerman's artistic output decreased. In 1947, she remarried Dr. David Fink (1894 – 1968), a prominent Southern California psychiatrist. By 1950, Zimmerman was working as a clinical psychologist in her husband’s medical practice. After suffering from serious illnesses, Fink and Zimmerman took their own lives in 1968. Zimmerman was only fifty-six years old.