Sister Mary Rufinia
Sister Mary Rufinia (born Amalia Mathilde Kloke) (October 24, 1881 – October 10, 1959) was a German-born American nun and painter.
She was born in Kalkum and raised in , a hamlet near Wissen, where her father worked as forester. Sister Mary Rufinia, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, received early art instruction in Berlin before emigrating to the United States, where she began work as a nurse at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1906.[1] After a back injury suffered while lifting a large patient onto a bed in 1920 she gradually abandoned nursing for painting, eventually becoming a teacher.[2] From 1930 to 1931 she studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received a bachelor of fine arts degree; she received her master of fine arts degree from Syracuse University in 1938. She also studied at DePaul University and the Cleveland School of Art, and took lessons under and Wayman Adams. She taught in Lafayette for many years, both privately and at St. Francis High School, and wrote for School Arts Magazine. She exhibited widely during her career, including at numerous Hoosier Salons, and won a number of prizes as well.[1] A collection of her work is in the , which mounted an exhibition dedicated to her work in 2011.[3]
Sister Mary Rufinia favored still lifes and religious scenes for subject matter, and worked in oil and watercolor.[1] She is best known for her 1936 painting The Old Carpenter.[2]
References[]
- ^ a b c Judith Vale Newton and Carol Ann Weiss (2004). Skirting the Issue: Stories of Indiana's Historical Women Artists. Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 0-87195-177-0.
- ^ a b "The Mystery of the Old Carpenter – Latterly Magazine". 21 January 2015. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
- ^ alizovckerspxc (31 October 2011). "Sister Mary Rufinia Exhibition, The Art Museum of Greater Lafayette". Retrieved 8 May 2017 – via YouTube.
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- 1881 births
- 1959 deaths
- German emigrants to the United States
- American Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns
- American women painters
- 20th-century American painters
- 20th-century American women artists
- 20th-century Roman Catholics
- People from Lafayette, Indiana
- Painters from Indiana
- School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
- Syracuse University alumni
- DePaul University alumni
- Cleveland School of Art alumni
- 20th-century Christian nuns
- Catholics from Indiana
- American painter, 19th-century birth stubs