Ruth Schaumann

Born in Hamburg in 1899, Ruth Schaumann grew up partly in Alsace and lost her hearing as a child after scarlet fever. She later moved to Munich, studied at the State School of Applied Arts, and developed as both a writer and an artist.

Schaumann worked across an impressive range of forms: poetry, fiction, children’s books, drawing, sculpture, and religious art. Sources consistently describe her as a poet, novelist, sculptor, and graphic artist, and note the importance of Catholic themes in her life and work.

She died in Munich in 1975. Today she is remembered not only for the breadth of her output, but also for the determination with which she created it while living as a deaf artist in twentieth-century Germany.