An itinerant, collaborative portrait painter with her husband, Ruth Shute was born in Dover, New Hampshire, and was married in 1827 to artist Samuel Addison Shute, a doctor and portrait painter. They settled in Weare, New Hampshire but traveled widely to paint portraits. They would advertise in local papers that they were available for portrait painting and stay as long as the commissions lasted.

In 1833, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, they finished eighteen portraits in thirty-one days. About twenty-five portraits are extant from the early painting period of 1827 to 1831, fifteen by him and ten by Ruth.

The earliest signed portrait by both of them was for the Atkinson family in Lowell, Massachus...