Peter Ruta at NYU Casa Italiana
February 2 – February 27, 2015
and at Westbeth Project Room 2

ITALY EARLY AND LATE, an exhibition of paintings by PETER RUTA

From February 2-27 Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò of New York University will present an exhibition of Peter Ruta’s Italian paintings, dating from the 1950’s when he lived between Venice, Rome and Positano. Also on view will be large, exuberant 21st century landscapes completed in southern Italy in recent years, by this vital artist, who turns 97 on February 7th. Ruta will be present at the opening on February 2, 6-8 PM, to converse wih NYU Art History professor Ara Merjian about his deep connection with Italy and Italian artists of his generation.

Ruta is best known in the U.S. for his mature work, luminous cityscapes painted from downtown Manhattan rooftops and from the 9lst Floor of the North Tower of the WTC, and for his Mexican and New Mexican landscapes. The early Italian paintings have been rediscovered lately in Europe, with museum shows in Italy and Germany. This is their first show in New York in over half a century.

Ruta’s early Italian work both undergirds and illuminates what came later. Small intimate paintings, unerringly composed, restrained in palette — sideways street views, buttoned up portraits, frugal still life — offer a moving, authentic record of postwar Italy, as Italians like to remember it: poor, honest, hopeful day by day.Italy in the 50s – when Abstract Expressionism ruled the New York scene –was a refuge for Ruta, freed to find his own unique fusion of seemingly disparate elements: Venetian baroque, an early love of Italian and Mexican fresco, Mediterranean light that bleached his palette and clarified his composition. Ruta “the lyrical luminist” as he has been dubbed, was born in Positano, in long late afternoon conversations with sea and sky. A conversation resumed with energy and aplomb by the mature painter working for part of each year since 2007 on the Amalfi coast.

Ruta’s German anti Nazi parents left Leipzig for Italy in 1923. Ruta, on his own, left Fascist Italy for New York in 1936. A witness to over half a century of art history, in the late 1930s, he was monitor at the Art Students League in the fresco class of Jean Charlot, who trained the Mexican muralists. Charlot sent Ruta to Mexico in 1939 to meet the group around Siqueiros and work at the fabled Taller de Grafica Popular. In New York in 1940 Ruta met the artists arriving from occupied France. Matta, Berman, Leonid, the American original Edward Melcarth became lifelong friends. After wartime adventures (badly wounded in infantry combat on Bataan February 3, 1945) Ruta returned to Italy. In 1947 he drew close to Leo Stein, living his last year in Settignano. In 1949 Peggy Guggenheim sought Ruta’s help in searching for the right palazzo. In New York in the 60s Ruta edited ARTS magazine, publicizing the new trends of the times: Op, Pop, Conceptual.

Ruta has shown at major galleries in New York and Europe for over fifty years. Major museum shows include Museum of the City of New York (2004) Leipzig Stadtgeschichtliches Museum (2008, a 90th birthday retrospective), Ceramic Museum, Thurnau, Germany (2010) and Villa Rufolo, Ravello (2012). A major show is planned for the Museo della provincia di Salerno for 2016.

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo, New York University 24 West 12th Street, New York 10011gallery hours Mon-Fri 10 AM to 5 PM

tel. 212-998-8739 casaitaliananyu.org

Peter Ruta’s paintings at the Westbeth Project Room 2 features his recent still lives.