Ruth Marie Reeves (1892–1966) was an American painter, Art Deco textile designer and expert on Indian handicrafts.

[5] During her time in Paris, she pioneered the use of vat dyes and the screen print process for home fabrics.

[6] Returning to the United States in 1927, her designs were influenced by modern developments in France like Cubism.

Within the Index, Shaker works were highly prized as Reeves felt they emphasized the art of the American common man.

South Mountain is one of her earliest narrative pieces designed as an autobiographical family portrait.

[6] In 1930, Reeve was commissioned by the W. & J. Sloane Company to create a group of narrative textiles to be submitted to the American Federation of Art for their International Exhibition of Decorative Metalwork and Cotton Textiles that was to be held later that year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Each pattern was printed on twenty-nine different types of cotton and depicted a series of rooms in an imaginary house.