Cynthia Caplan
Cynthia Caplan was a beautiful and loving person and talented artist. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 20th, 1932. Her parents, Max and Anne Ruttenberg, moved to Chicago when she was 2 so Max could more easily be the Midwest representative of American Textiles, the family business he co-founded and owned with his brothers.
Cynthia grew up on the near north side of Chicago in an apartment at 3750 Lake Shore Drive (on the corner of Grace Street). She was an only child and as a kid she loved to read, visit museums, and enjoy the lively atmosphere of City life. After attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison for two years she transferred to Northwestern University where she graduated with a BA and MA in English Literature. She met Jay, her future husband, while a still a student and they got married on June 25th, 1953.
Cynthia and Jay lived in Chicago at 421 Melrose Street when in November 1958 their son Michael was born. In 1964 the family moved north of the City to Highland Park where Cynthia raised Michael as a stay at home Mom for a number of years. During that period she established an art studio in the basement of their house at 294 Hastings Road and began to produce a large amount of artwork.
Cynthia went back to school in the early 1970s to get her teaching credential and after working for a few years at the Evanston Children’s Home, went on to teach art and English literature for over 20 years at Wauconda High School. Teaching became a central part of her life and identity but her greatest lifelong passion outside her family and friends remained her love of art.
Her artistic skills were first honed in the late 50s/ early 60s when she took classes at the Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago. Over the years she not only taught art but continued her studies in many wonderful places – Japanese brush painting in Hawaii, landscape painting classes in Arizona and New Mexico. She had a deep appreciation of the southwestern landscape and many of her paintings reflect the indigenous stones and colors of that area. She loved nature and spent many wonderful hours at the Chicago Botanical Gardens, one of her very favorite places to go visit, sketch, meet-up with friends. Interestingly, some of her art reflects more of an inner place, mysterious windows looking into hidden spaces, or fantastical landscapes populated with fossils - trilobites, ammonites and other ancient creatures, sometimes captured in curious ways.
After Cynthia retired from teaching in 1995 she suddenly had a lot more time for her artistic pursuits. She produced her art at home and in favorite outdoor places, and continued to take art classes where she developed some very close friends and relationships with teachers. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s she actively displayed her work at numerous shows, art festivals and public venues.
Cynthia passed away on June 28, 2007. Over the course of her lifetime she produced a substantial body of beautiful and eclectic work. She loved, and was loved by many people throughout her life. She will long be remembered as a warm, funny, outgoing and kind person, a devoted wife and mother, and someone who cultivated close connections with her extended family and her many wonderful friends.