Final Strokes of the Brush

Image by Ruth Schloss
Crossposted from Haaretz

Image by Ruth Schloss
A Beethoven symphony plays in the background as light rain falls. Artist Ruth Schloss, wrapped in a blanket, reclines in a lounge chair. Now at the age of 90, she drifts in and out of sleep during the course of the day. She is living her life in the present continuous with few memories and no tasks left to accomplish.
“At the moment there is nothing I have to do,” she says quietly and with acceptance. For several years now she has not been painting at all: The German-born artist whose hands never rested over a period of 70 years was forced into retirement by poor health. Schloss’s hands — “my tools,” she calls them — gradually lost their control and strength. The artist fought the degeneration as well as she could and even invented new techniques for drawing and painting until she became too tired to press on. Thus, there will be no more new art by Ruth Schloss. Indeed, this is also why her current solo show at the Zaritsky Artists House in Tel Aviv has been called “First and Last Works.”
The small but impressive exhibition consists of about 30 drawings and paintings on canvas as well as one film, a documentary about Schloss’s life, made by Peter Dudzig in 2008. The show is curated by Irit Levin, an independent curator who since 2001 has been accompanying Schloss and her family, helping with exhibitions and connections in the art world.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.