Norma Rubovits

Norma Rubovits (1918 – March 16, 2016) was an American paper marbler, bookbinder, and collector.

Norma Rubovits
Born	Norma Bloch (1918-08-26)August 26, 1918 Tulsa, Oklahoma
Died	(2016-03-16)March 16, 2016 Chicago, Illinois
Alma mater	University of Oklahoma
Known for	Paper craft

Early life and education

Rubovits née Bloch was born in 1918 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She attended the University of Oklahoma.^[1] At the age of 21, she relocated to Chicago to work as a dietician at University of Chicago Hospitals. She married Dr. Frank Rubovits and the couple studied bookbinding techniques, including a class taught by Elizabeth Kner.^[2]

Career

Rubovits turned her attention to paper marbling, learning the process by contacting other paper marblers and studying books about the craft in the Newberry Library. Her style evolved into producing spare images that she referred to as vignettes. As well a creating marbled paper, Rubovits amassed a collection of over 4,000 examples of marbled paper from around the world.^[1] She donated her collection to the Newberry Library^[3] in the early 1990s. In 2010 the Newberry held a retrospective of her work.^[2]

Rubovits died at the age of 97 on March 16, 2016, in Chicago.^[2]

Featured works

Her work was included in the 2023 exhibition Pattern and Flow: A Golden Age of American Decorated Papers, 1960s-2000s at the Grolier Club,^[1] and in the Paper Legacy Project at the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[4]