Ruth Light Braun captured the lived experience of Jews in New York and Palestine through her artwork in charcoal and conte crayon. Light began focusing on portrait work in the mid-1920s and studied at the Cooper Union Art College for Women in New York, as well as with portrait artist Winold Reiss. Light often drew people against backdrops of the places that were meaningful to their daily lives, like subway stations, department stores, the shtetls that Jewish immigrants had left and the Lower East Side neighborhoods they now called home. From 1931–1933, Light worked in Palestine, capturing images of local Jews against the landscape of Israel. After the death of her first husband, Light returned to the US and remarried, helping her new husband establish Braun’s Fine Caterers in Washington DC, which became the official caterers of the US State Department.