Discovering the Work of Ruth Grover – Urban Art & Antiques

Among many reasons to frequent Lincoln City is the Little Antique Mall. It is a polished agate among the pebbles of the Oregon coast. The inventory changes often enough to guarantee some surprises with each visit.

Some finds include a stellar Hawaiian shirt, a floor lamp and art-nouveau shade from the 1920s (but bought separately), and even a pair of 19th-century English parlor chairs with great needlepoint seat covers.

Sometimes a discovery is made on your way out the door. That’s when an enigma encaustic painting called out. Rarely do you see an abstract painting in an antique mall; but even more scarce is an abstract painting that seems to ask a sincere question.

Removed from the wall, the work revealed that it is not only signed but has the original label from Cascade Artists Co-op, founded in 1952 by the artist Ruth Dennis Grover.

With a fuzzy and translucent surface, an encaustic painting always begs for a second look. This one has an inner radiant light that seems sourced from nature.

A few Google searches show that Ruth Grover, a native of Portland, spent most of her life in Lincoln City. The Grover family moved to Michigan, where Ruth grew up, and later enrolled in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. After her father passed away in 1939, she and her mother moved back to Oregon and settled down on the Coast. From 1944 until she died in 2003, Grover lived in the Roads End neighborhood, together with her partner, author M. K. Wren.

Here’s a rare video of the artist from PBS recorded in 2003. It features a clip from her younger self showing her practice.

If the Oregon art community could exhibit as much as just half of the enthusiasm that Texans have held for early artists of their home state, there would have been much more scholarly research and exhibitions. To understand the state of Oregonian art today, there is a need to establish the link to the past, to those who left a legacy with their work, writing, and teaching.

But often that is not enough. Smaller communities and fly-over towns don’t have the luxury of an art ecosystem with artists, collectors, galleries, museums, and art critics today, and much worse half a century ago. Often it was up to the perseverance of key artists to integrate art into the fabric of a community in the early stage. 

When Grover moved to Lincoln City, the Oregon Coast was yet to be a tourist place. Grover planted seeds of artistic creativity for generations of coastal Oregonians by wearing many hats at once: Director of Lincoln City Art Center where exhibitions were open to the public, often outdoor; teacher of watercolor painting for both children and adults; founder of an artist co-op for kindred spirits with traveling shows to Washington and Idaho, and an artist who embraced encaustic and abstraction in the 1950s when few along the coast had experienced either.

Ruth was also an avid rock collector and participated in agate societies and exhibitions. I cannot help associating the shimmering colors she chose with the gleaming bands of those rare stones.

This could be our first piece of early Oregon art. The 1970s may not be early enough. But what a unique experience it was to shop at an antique store and learn about an artist who spent sixty years promoting the development of the art scene on the Oregon Coast. We are glad that we have a piece of that history.