Ruth Guggenheim Nivola, Artist & Author

Born in Munich in 1917, Ruth Nivola left Germany in 1933 for Italy where she attended the Instituto D’Arte Contemporanea di Monza, studying graphics, drawing and painting. There she met her husband, the Sardinian sculptor Costantino Nivola, with whom she fled from fascism in Italy to Paris. Ruth Nivola studied fashion in Paris, and the Nivolas moved to New York in 1939. Settling in New York and in East Hampton to raise their family in the late 1940’s, the Nivolas welcomed artists from all over Europe who were immigrating to New York at the same time.  In 1948 they bought an old farm in Long Island, and for many years they spent six months on the farm and six months in Manhattan. Costantino, who died in 1988, left a prodigious body of work which Ruth Nivola has spent the last fifteen years organizing for the Museo Nivola in Sardinia, among other things. Ruth Nivola has shown her jewelry at the American Craft Museum, the Zabriskie Gallery, Longhouse Reserve, and in Italy.