Still Life. Having trained classically, Ruth Libstein created her earliest Still Lives whilst at the Manchester School of Art in the 1930s, and continued with more traditional compositions throughout the 40s and 50s, but with significant development, abstracting from her early figurative work. Her last still lives are amongst the most electrically charged and vivid works, often using her love for the flowers grown by her husband Theo in their gardens and developing fantastical settings for them.