Ruth Rogers-Altmann

Ruth Rogers-Altmann (December 31, 1917 – October 11, 2015[1]) was a Vienna-born painter and fashion designer once called "The Pioneer Sportswear Icon of New York" by The Leo Baeck Institute.

[4] Her passion for spontaneity of performance, rhythm in dance, and artists of her period like Schiele, Kokoschka and Klimt – as well as Picasso, in some of her later African-themed work – are continuing influences in her painting.

Beginning her fashion career as a stylist with Herzmansky, Vienna's largest department store, she subsequently launched Bloomingdale's first skiwear center, introduced to America a never-before-seen stretch fabric for ski pants she discovered while in Paris, designed the first ski jacket that had a concealed hood built into the collar in 1938, and in 1951 founded Ruth Rogers Enterprises (RRE), a management consulting service for apparel manufacturers specializing in design and styling.

[7] An expert skier herself, in 1998 at the age of 81 she competed in the Gerald Ford American Ski Classic, where she faced an opponent in her twenties – and won.

Rogers-Altmann also served for more than a decade as a Special Consultant to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City,[9] and was a lecturer at Parsons the New School for Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, Wood Tobe-Coburn School of Fashion Merchandising, and Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Tel Aviv.

Her development of a technique called "coloramic vibrant hues and circle symbol" began in the late 1940s when she worked with Lee Gatch, who had studied with the Cubist Andre Lhote and other School of Paris artists of the 1920s.