My cousin, Ruth Artmonsky, who has died aged 94, was a pioneer in the commercial use of psychometric testing. Together with her second husband, Roger Holdsworth, and their associate Peter Saville, she was a founder in 1977 of the consultancy Saville & Holdsworth (later SHL), which started in their living room and went on to become a global corporation with offices in 30 countries.
After selling her share in the company in 1997, Ruth used her self-taught knowledge of the arts to set up and run her own gallery, Artmonsky Arts, in St John’s Wood, north London, for five years, before turning to writing. Her 36 books about art, design and advertising included Designing Women (2012) and Modern Design in 1930s Britain (2026).
Ruth and her identical twin sister, Naomi, were born in Blackpool, to Samuel Rudmanski, a customs and excise officer, and his wife, Marie (nee Cohen). Growing up, both girls threw themselves into culture, playing duets on the piano, going to concerts and reading the latest novels.
From Blackpool Collegiate school, Ruth went to Birmingham University and gained a degree in economics and social work. In the mid-1950s she was a social worker at Wandsworth prison, in south-west London.
Later she moved on to an administrative role at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology (NIIP), and the insights into statistical and organisational psychology that she gained there – allied to studies for a second degree at Birkbeck University of London in psychology – eventually led her to set up a careers and psychometric testing service for the Greater London council in the early 70s, something of an innovation at the time.
Following a divorce from her first husband, Norman Lancashire, in 1977 Ruth married Roger, who had also worked at the NIIP. They shared a conviction that personality assessments through psychometric testing could reveal key information about potential employees and help companies to recruit more efficiently – an idea that resulted in the establishment of Saville & Holdsworth.
When Ruth and Roger divorced in 1997 and she started her art gallery, she wanted to change her name and chose Artmonsky – the name given on her father’s birth certificate through a clerical error. Thereafter she devoted herself to her longstanding interest in the arts.
Design was Ruth’s passion, and she surrounded herself with it in her everyday life at her loft apartment in Covent Garden. An eye for quality and cutting-edge style guided her choice of wardrobe, and with her silver hair always smartly coiffed, and her striking and statuesque figure, she became a familiar presence in the restaurants and cafes of the Henrietta Street area in which she lived.
She is survived by her daughters, Becky and Stella, from her first marriage , a granddaughter, Sally, and her sister, Naomi.
