Ruth Sobotka designs

1943-1966 and undated

Designer, dancer and actress, Ruth A. Sobotka, was born in Vienna in 1925. She emigrated to the United States with her family when she was 14. Sobotka attended the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Institute of Technology. She also studied ballet at the School of American Ballet and was a dancer for Ballet Society and New York City Ballet. Sobotka designed costumes for both theater and dance. She appeared as "The girl" in Man Ray's segment of the Hans Richter avant-garde film, Dreams that money can buy (1947) and later worked on several films in various capacities. In 1955, she married film director Stanley Kubrick; they divorced in 1961. After retiring from dancing, Sobotka focused on acting and designing. She died after a brief illness at Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospital in June1967, at the age of 42. Approximately 71 original color costume and set designs (mostly costume designs) by Ruth Sobotka. Aladdin and the wonderful lamp is the only play represented in the collection that was actually produced (Unit Theatre Group, 1966); there are also index cards with notes and swatches for this show. Sobotka's costume and set designs for Bathsheba by Jacques Deval (1947), Ladies in retirement by Edward Percy and Reginald Denham (ca. 1944), The merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (ca. 1944), Twelfth night by William Shakespeare (ca. 1944), a Passion play (ca. 1944), and a Shakespearean production (ca. 1944), were never executed, or were Carnegie Institute of Technology schoolwork.