Ruth
Pershing Uhler was born in Pennsylvania. She studied at
the Philadelphia School of Design for Women with Jean Charlot,
Leopold Seyfert and the H. B. Snell Art School in Boothbay Harbor,
Maine. After her marriage she moved to Houston and was exhibiting
in the 1920’s. She began an extensive exhibition career in the
1920s. She lived in Santa Fe between 1935 and 1936 where she was
influenced by native arts and upon her return completed a series of
New Mexican landscapes. She joined the staff of the HMFA in 1937
where she was to oversee the museum school and public education
projects. In one incident of artists melancholia in the 1930’s she
burned hundreds of her canvases in her back yard, the flames and
smoke so great that artist Grace John thought her home was burning
down.