On Ruth Vollmer and Minimalism’s Marginalia

Abstract

This article considers the work of sculptor Ruth Vollmer (1903–82), who began her artistic career late in life after emigrating from Germany to the United States in 1935. During the 1960s, Vollmer was a key fi gure in the New York art world, holding salons at her home attended by Robert Smithson, Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt, amongst others. These younger artists published writings on Vollmer’s work and owned key pieces of her sculpture. But while their work is now well known, Vollmer’s has been neglected in historical accounts of the period. Supporters and critics of Vollmer have attributed this marginalization to a certain anachronism, something I explore further in relation to her status as an exiled subject and in relation to the accounts of art history.