Painting

Peter Ruta dedicated much of his later career to painting his creative muse, the urban landscape of New York City. His works capture the play of light and shadow cast on the built environment and Manhattan’s ever-evolving skyline. Typically, the artist removed discernible human activity from these scenes, focusing instead on the geometry of Manhattan’s architecture and the street grid system that had guided urban planning since the early 19^th century.

In 2000, at age 82, Ruta was awarded pro-bono space on the 91st floor of the North Tower as a special participant in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council residency program, in partnership with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This presented him with new panoramic views of Manhattan and spurred the creation of a series of works painted at this heightened elevation. After an intense period of work on a new cityscape inspired by his studio in the sky, Ruta took a short break and decided to extend a late summer family vacation in Cape Cod. On September 11, 2001, he was still in Massachusetts—a fortuitous circumstance that likely spared his life when the Towers fell. The painting left in his 91st floor studio was destroyed.

Ruta was born in Germany, and his career spanned many decades, continents, and themes. In his maturity as a fine artist, he remained intrigued by and loyal to painting the distinctive topography of New York City. He practiced art until his death in 2016 at age 98.