Ernest Ruckle is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 noted for his elaborately-structured paintings. He was born in Neptune, New Jersey

Neptune Township, New Jersey

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 27,690 people, 10,907 households, and 6,805 families residing in the township. The population density was 3,366.8 people per square mile . There were 12,217 housing units at an average density of 1,485.4 per square mile...

, USA.

Life and work

Ruckle attended elementary school

Elementary school

An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...

s in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 and Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, and high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. At Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

, he at first majored in biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, but later switched to English literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 and specialized in literary criticism. His most influential teachers were Francis Fergusson

Francis Fergusson

Francis Fergusson was an American academic and critic, a theorist of drama and mythology. Fergusson taught for a time on the faculty of the department of English at Rutgers University and is regarded as an influence on poet Robert Pinsky....

 and Paul Fussell

Paul Fussell

Paul Fussell is an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of genres, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America’s class system...

.

After getting his degree, he became a professional artist in 1963. He soon started to produce paintings in formal perspective with huge crowds of people and parodies of complex machinery. His first one-man show was at the Studio Gallery Workshop in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1966. (His tenth New York one-man show was in 2005 at the Louis K. Meisel Gallery.)

Between 1966 and 1969 Ruckle developed an original flat style, influenced by Cubism and Futurism, with an unusual perspective system, perhaps influenced by Persian miniatures. Beginning around 1975 he began to use more than one style in a work and to use variation in style as a structural device.

Famous Works

1. The People Factory (1965) is an early example of Ruckle's work using conventional perspective.
2. Watch-Fleas (1966) is an early experiment with a flat style.
3. The Cosmogenitor (1975) is a triptych using a different style in each panel.
4. The Square (1983) is the first of a series of large triptychs. It's a return to conventional perspective.
5. The EuroDisney Triptych (1998) gradually changes in style from left to right, mirroring the change in action.

External links

• Ernest Ruckle's website
• The EuroDisney Triptych website contains hundreds of direct scans of the triptych
  Triptych
  A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
  
  that can be printed and assembled into a large reproduction.