Ruta Kreica

Ruta Kreica died on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at the age of 80. Her death was announced on 23 October 2026 by the Latvian Artists' Union, whose president, Igors Dobicins, conveyed the news, and it was reported by the public broadcaster LSM, Delfi, Jauns.lv and Neatkariga Rita Avize. The union expressed its condolences to her family and colleagues. No cause of death was made public. A farewell was announced for Monday 26 October 2026 at 12.00 in the Small Hall of the Riga Crematorium, Varonu iela 3a.

Ruta Kreica was born on 11 September 1946. She came to the visual arts through her family: the brother of her adoptive father was the landscape and marine painter Stanislavs Kreics (1909 to 1992), and from her mother she inherited a respect for literature that later found expression in her book illustrations.

From 1958 she studied at the Janis Rozentals Riga Secondary School of Art, where her teachers included the painters Ansis Stunda, Arnolds Grikis and Harijs Blunavs. She graduated in 1965 alongside future artists such as Visvaldis Kokins and Aivars Sprudzs.

In 1972 she began studying in the Graphics Department of the State Art Academy of the Latvian SSR, now the Latvian Academy of Arts. While a student, in 1977, she took part with Andrejs Germanis in drawing activities for children at the Mazirbe boarding school, held to gather sketches for an animated film by the director Roze Stiebra. She graduated in 1978 with the diploma work My Friends, a series of etchings supervised by Gunars Krollis.

After leaving art school Kreica joined Riga Pantomime, the movement theatre ensemble of the Oktobris builders' culture house, led by the Dailes Theatre actor Roberts Ligers, whose members included Modris Tenisons and Ansis Rutentals. She was also part of the Kaza group, which met at the former Sputnik cafe at Valnu iela 10 in Riga and united painters, writers, composers and film makers around ideas of creative freedom at odds with official Soviet ideology.

As a graphic artist she worked mainly in book design and illustration. From 1980 she collaborated with the Liesma publishing house, illustrating titles including Vija Upmale's Normunds un burvju makslinieks Niko (1980), Eriks Hanbergs's Pliki un puspliki (1983), Maija Kudapa's Paradizes abolisi (1983), Erwin Strittmatter's Schulzenhofer Kramkalender (1985), a Latvian edition of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (1985) and Nikolai Kun's retelling of the Golden Fleece (1985). She also illustrated for the publisher Avots and drew for the newspapers Literatura un Maksla, Padomju Jaunatne and Literatura. Maksla. Mes, and for the magazines Zilite and Zvaigzne.

She held a joint exhibition with Dzintra Aulmane in 1984 and took part in shows including the Republican Exhibition of Young Artists (1978), children's and youth book exhibitions in Berlin and Munich (1984) and the sixth Republican Exhibition of Book Graphics (1984). From 1985 she taught at the Mazirbe boarding school in the Kolka parish, a school where the artist Andris Grinbergs had also taught. She was admitted to the Latvian Artists' Union in 1986 on the recommendation of the printmakers Gunars Krollis, Aleksandrs Stankevics, Indulis Zvaguzs and Rihards Skrubis.

Kreica's family connection to art ran through her adoptive father's brother, the painter Stanislavs Kreics. In the 1970s she was photographed in Riga by Mara Brasmane, who documented the Fluxus style happenings of the Kaza group. Few other details of her private life have been made public.

Kreica belonged to a generation of Latvian women artists whose careers were only partly recorded, and her inclusion in the 2020 exhibition I Remember, Therefore I Am. Unwritten Stories: Women Artists' Archives at the Latvian National Museum of Art helped bring her work back into view. Her illustrations shaped how a generation of Latvian children first met books such as Oliver Twist, and her prints are held by the Latvian National Museum of Art, the museum of the Latvian Artists' Union and private collections.