1920s – , Florida
We visited Ruby C. Williams at her fruit stand outside of Tampa, FL, where she began to paint her bright colorful signs to attract customers. Customers in turn soon began to buy her paintings, and that was all the encouragement needed.
Born in raised in Plant City, Florida, a town established by freed slaves, Ruby is a minister and has run her fields for many years. Charming, sweet, sharp, a distinctive style, and usually packing a pistol, her works contain many of her sayings, displaying her feisty, no-nonsense attitude. She signs her work with her distinctive initials, “RCW”.