Rudolph Ruzicka (American, born Bohemia, 1883–1978)

b. 1883 — d. 1978

Born in Bohemia, Rudolph Ruzicka immigrated with his family to Chicago in 1894. At the age of 14, he left school to become a wood-engraving apprentice at the Franklin Engraving Company in Chicago. He attended evening classes at the Art Institute of Chicago as well as weekend drawing classes at Hull House, 1897–1900. He moved to New York to work as a commericial printmaker in 1903. He had solo exhibitions in Cleveland at Korner & Wood Galleries (1913) and the Cleveland Museum of Art (1917). He traveled to Cleveland and sketched the city after receiving a commission to create work for the Cleveland Print Club in 1927. He moved to Boston during the late 1940s and over the subsequent decades added book illustration to his career achievements. Ruzicka died in Hanover, New Hampshire. "Transformations in Cleveland Art" (CMA, 1996), p. 235