Ruby Bute

Who is Ruby Bute?

Ruby Bute was born on 13 January 1943 in Aruba to parents from Sint Maarten who had migrated there for work, and the family later returned to Saint Martin, where she settled permanently in 1976 in Marigot. Largely self-taught, she began painting in vivid, folk-inspired color, documenting everyday island life, and held what is believed to be the first solo art exhibition by a woman on Saint Martin in 1983. In 1989 she became the first woman on the island to publish a book, the poetry collection Golden Voices of S'maatin, followed by Floral Bouquets to the Daughters of Eve in 1995, both centered on the lives and struggles of Afro-Caribbean women. From 1986 she worked with the island's Department of Culture, teaching painting to schoolchildren at the John Larmonie Center and to inmates and visitors alike, and in 2009 she opened the Ruby Bute Silk Cotton Grove Art Gallery in Friar's Bay. In 2005 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands decorated her, making her an honorary Member of the House of Orange-Nassau. Widely called "the first dame of St. Martin's cultural arts," Bute died on 5 November 2024, leaving a lasting legacy in the island's painting and literary tradition.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Ruby Bute" · SXM Talks / FAXINFO, "TRIBUTE: The Eternal Legacy of Ruby Bute" · St. Martin News Network, "Department of Culture extends its deepest condolences to Cultural Icon Ruby Bute"