Ruth Payne Burgess,, was a naturalistic painter of portraits, still lifes, and genre work.
Personal life
Ruth Payne Jewett was born in Montpelier, Vermont in 1865, the daughter of Elisha P. Jewett and Julia Kellogg Field Jewett. Her grandparents were Captain Nathan Jewett and Ruth Payne and her great-grandfather was Elisha Payne. She attended school in Northampton, Massachusetts, at the Mary A. Burnham School. Ruth Payne Jewett met John William Burgess in Vermont through a mutual friend, the artist Thomas Waterman Wood. Burgess founded the Columbia University's political science department. She married John Williams Burgess on September 2, 1885. Burgess was previously married on August 24, 1869, to Augusta Thayer Jones, who died in 1884. She was described as an artist who was "highly intelligent, well educated, and an accomplished musician." Ruth and her husband had one child, Elisha Payne Jewett Burgess, and in 1905 had houses in New York City and Montpelier, Vermont. After John Burgess retired from Columbia, the couple lived in Newport, Rhode Island in a house named "Athenwood" and in Brookline, Massachusetts. John William Burgess died of a heart attack in Brookline, Massachusetts on January 13, 1931. Ruth Payne Burgess died in March 1934 and her funeral was held on March 14. It was interrupted when her son, Elisha, a mining engineer, was arraigned after evading arrest for non-payment of spousal and child support for three years. Following the funeral her body was taken to a crematory in New Jersey.
Burgess painted portraits, including Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University; A. Barton Hepburn; and Admiral Charles E. Clark. Her work was shown in nine exhibitions at the National Academy of Design from 1897 to 1906 as well as from 1924 to 1933. A report of the Newport Annual Exhibition in 1915 records a visitor as saying, "The picture I like best is this head by Mrs. Burgess, it's more natural and lifelike than any picture in the whole show". Her work contains orientalist themes. In 1899 Burgess joined the National Association of Women Artists and the Woman's Art Club of New York, where she served as the organization's president from 1905 to 1910 and contributed to its financial growth. She was able to call on friends for money as well as make personal donations. Her donation of five hundred dollars contributed to the association offering a one hundred dollar prize for five years. Burgess was also president of the Art Students League for a period of time. Additionally, Burgess was a member of groups such as the Academy of Fine Arts of Hartford, the American Water Color Society, the Society of New York Painters, and the Allied Artists of America. Burgess was a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
