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Ruth Selby-Bigge

British artist Ruth Selby-Bigge (1892-1962) was born Rachel (Ruth) Humphries, the daughter of a founder of the Lund Humphries publishing company. She became a promising student at the Slade School of Art in London and was awarded four major prizes, including first prize for the Slade School’s Summer Composition Competition in 1912-13 for her large painting, A Group of Figures Standing in a Landscape (UCL Art Collection). A talented and beautiful young woman, she was much admired by fellow students Mark Gertler and Edward Wadsworth; mixed in Bloomsbury circles; and was a close friend of fellow Slade student, Dora Carrington.

England & Co held Ruth Selby-Bigge’s first formal gallery exhibition in December 2025, where her works were presented for the first time alongside those of her former husband husband in the exhibition John and Ruth Selby-Bigge: From the Slade to Surrealism.

• England & Co represent Ruth Selby-Bigge’s estate and are currently further researching her life and career and would be interested to receive any information about her life and and artworks as much of her archive has been lost.



BIOGRAPHY   
 
Paintings   

Drawings and works on paper



Untitled - Details


Untitled (Six shell studies) c 1950s
9 x 7.25 inches (paper 12.5 x 10.25 inches)
Gouache on pink paper

Shells - Details


Shells c 1950s
9 x 7 inches (paper 9.25 x 7.25 inches)
Gouache on paper

Coral - Details


Coral c 1950s
9 x 7 inches (paper 14.25 x 11.25 inches)
Gouache on paper

Untitled - Details


Untitled (Lily) c 1950
15 x 11 inches
Gouache on paper

Funkia - Details


Funkia c 1950
15 x 11 inches
Gouache on paper

Cobea scandans - Details


Cobea scandans c 1950
14 x 9.75 inches
Gouache on paper

Untitled - Details


Untitled c 1940
22 x 14.75 inches
Pastel on paper