Detroit native Leonard Ruder graduated from Meinzinger School of Art in Detroit, Michigan in 1946. Following a brief sojourn at the University of Fine Arts in San Miguel, Mexico, Ruder enrolled at Cranbrook Academy of Art to study painting under Zolton Sepeshy. After graduating with his MFA in 1950, Ruder was included in a well-received traveling exhibition, Six American Painters, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The same year, he moved to Portland, Oregon to attend the Portland Museum Art School. Planning to make a career out of painting, he took a day job as a custodian in a local school district to support his young family while painting in his home studio at night. Ruder continued working this way for the rest of his life, painting for over 50 years and exhibiting through the Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery, and periodically participating in group shows at smaller galleries and museums. Ruder’s fascination with space & science, architecture & machinery, and philosophy & religion are revealed in his work. A retrospective exhibition of his life and work was presented in 2008 at The Art Gym at Marylhurst University in Marylhurst, Oregon.
(Adapted from What to Paint and Why: Modern Painters at Cranbrook, 1936-1974, Chad Alligood)
EDUCATION
1952 Museum Art School, Portland, Art Museum, Portland, OR
1950 MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
1949 University of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico
1946 Meinzinger School of Art, Detroit, MI

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018 Paintings 1970–1990, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
2016 Spray Paintings from the 1960s, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
2015 Free Zone: Works from the l970s & ’80s, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
2014 Leonard Ruder at PDX, Portland International Airport, Portland, OR
2014 Paintings, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
2009 Constructed Spaces, 12 x 16 Gallery, Portland, OR
2008 Evidence of a Life’s Work, The Art Gym, Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, OR
1960 White Gallery, Portland State University, Portland, OR
1956 Drawings, The Junior Museum, Portland, OR
1950s Paul Hebb’s 13th Street Gallery, Portland, OR

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
2013 What to Paint and Why: Modern Painters at Cranbrook, 1936-1974, Cranbrook
Museum of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
2012, 2011 Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
2011 Augen Drawing Invitational, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
2010 Fifth Annual Group Show, 12 x 16 Gallery, Portland, OR
2000-1960 Rental Sales Gallery, Portland, OR
1977 B&P Gallery, Beaverton, OR
1977 Carnegie Center, Walla Walla, WA
1975, 1968, 1967, 1960, 1958, 1957, 1953, 1952 Artists of Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
1968 Visual Arts Gallery, Mt Hood Community College, Gresham, OR
1951-1952 Six American Painters, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (traveling show)

COLLECTIONS
Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR
Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

PUBLICATIONS / MEDIA
“Leonard Ruder: Paintings,” Willamette Week, Richard Speer, January 23, 2014
What to Paint and Why: Modern Painters at Cranbrook, 1963-1974, Chad Alligood, Curator,
Cranbrook Art Museum, 2013
Leonard Ruder: Evidence of a Life’s Work, Silas B. Cook, Guest Curator, The Art Gym, Marylhurst University, 2008
Six American Painters, Frederick S. Wight, Associate Director, Institute of Contemporary Art,
Boston, 1951