Ruth Smith (artist)

Her two self-portraits of 1955 [1] and 1956 are ranked among the most important paintings of the Faroes and are in the Faroe Islands Art Museum.

Smith married the architect Poul Morell Nielsen in 1945. They lived in Lemvig, Denmark. Later, with her husband, she moved back to the Faroe Islands; and in the last years of her life she lived in the small village of Nes, which is located on the fjord Vágsfjørður between the villages Vágur, where she was born, and Porkeri. Smith enjoyed swimming in the sea; in 1958, she drowned while swimming in Vágsfjørður.

There is an art museum in Vágur in honour of Ruth Smith. The museum is called Ruth Smith Savnið, which means Ruth Smith Art Museum. The museum is located in the Old School on Vágsvegur 101, which is the same school where Ruth Smith went to school as a child. The museum has paintings and drawing by the artist. One of the main attractions is a self-portrait, which she painted in 1941. It is the same self-portrait which was used as the cover of a book about the artist Ruth Smith.

Ruth Smith Nielsen (5 April 1913 in Vágur – 26 May 1958) was a Faroese artist. Smith lived for some years in Denmark, where she was educated as a painter: first. at the Bizzie Højer Art School, and, later, at the Art Academy of Copenhagen.