Ruth Henshaw Bascom

Ruth Henshaw Bascom, also known as Aunt Ruth (December 15, 1772 – February 16, 1848), was an American folk artist who produced over 1,400 portraits. She was the daughter of Colonel William Henshaw and Phebe Swan of Leicester, Massachusetts, and a schoolteacher from 1791 to 1801. Bascom married first, at about 32 years of age, to Dr. Asa Miles, but he died a year or more after their marriage. She married a second time for about 35 years to Reverend Ezekial Lysander Bascom. Bascom didn't give birth to children of her own, but she had a stepson from her first marriage, stepdaughter from her second marriage, and a niece and nephew that she raised. She documented the daily activities of her life in diaries beginning at the age of 17, which included records of the portraits that she made.

While married Bascom fulfilled the role of a minister's wife, was a teacher, and was active at the local library and in temperance societies. She made her first portrait in 1801, but she did not begin creating portraits regularly until after 1818. Bascom worked with a variety of materials, including pastels, pencils, cut paper, and foil. Some of her initial works were layered pieces of paper that represented the head and neck, clothing, and accessories placed over a background. She also made pastel portraits on one sheet of paper in the latter part of her career.

Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, author of American Women Artists: From Early Indian Times to the Present (1982), said that Bascom had a "calm strength of characterization combined with a sensitive feeling for shape, color and texture." Bascom had two older half-sisters from Henshaw's previous marriage to Ruth Sargeant, who was her namesake. Her father was a veteran of the French and Indian War and during the American Revolution, he was a key leader of the Worcester County Minutemen. He was also active with the Massachusetts General Court and served with George Washington during several battles in New Jersey.

She documented her life in a diary, held at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1789 to 1846.

Educator Elizabeth Cummings Low, watercolor, pastel, and pencil, 1829. From 1791 to 1801, she was a summer school teacher in the Leicester area. She taught up to 10 children who lived in the Bascom household during her marriage to Reverend Bascom; the schooling, paid for by the community, was conducted over a short term that included basic education, singing, and a term finale with costumes. Clough R. Miles, her stepson, lived in the Bascom household and studied there in 1809 and other years. In 1814 she was made superintendent of the Phillipston's central school. Bascom did not give birth to any children during the marriage, but she was an attentive and caring stepmother to Ezekiel's daughter, Priscilla Elvira Bascom Philbrick (b. 1803), from a previous marriage. After Ezekiel's sister, Eunice Loveland, committed suicide in 1810, the Bascoms raised her youngest child, a five- In 1816 Bascom began recording the town's vital statistics.

Reverend Bascom was dismissed for his liberal theology in 1820 from the Congregational Church in Phillipston after 21 years ministering to the church, The Bascoms moved to Ashby in 1820 and Ezekiel served as a minister there for 14 years,

Her artistic productivity was facilitated by a way of life that strongly emphasized community as well as family involvement, and was further nurtured by a penchant for travel in New England.|Lois S. Avigad

Bascom had two methods for creating portraits.

In the mid-1830s she began to create portraits drawn on one sheet of paper. Background might be brown or blue pastel, include dark green trees or ruffle curtains, or suggest an oval inner frame by adding convex arcs in the upper corners with spandrel corners. Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts Leicester Library, Massachusetts Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

Works This is a partial list of Bascom's works: Fanny Goodnow Parmenter, pastel and pencil on paper, 1829, Goodnow Library Collection, Sudbury, MA Jonathan A. Hubbard, 1830 Self-portrait, pastel on paper, , Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts