Valentin Ruths

Nestled in the heart of Hamburg, on March 6, 1825, began the journey of Johann Georg Valentin Ruths, one of the most important landscape painters and lithographers of his time. Despite his merchant ancestry, Ruths found his true calling in the fine brushstrokes of art, shaped and honed by the school of renowned Hamburg painter and lithographer Carl Friedrich Beer. This initial spark eventually led him to Munich to attend the Polytechnic School and later the Academy before returning to his hometown of Hamburg in 1848. His artistic training received further refinement when he attended the Düsseldorf Academy of Art and perfected his landscape painting under the guidance of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer . The inspirational influence of Schirmer was clearly evident in his work, and when Schirmer became director of the newly founded Karlsruhe Art School in 1854, Ruths also decided to leave Düsseldorf and set up his own studio in the city.