Picturing New York: The Paintings of Peter Ruta

New York became the National meeting point for culture and commerce in the mid nineteenth century, and it has been the center of the art world in America ever since. Picturing New York in the literal sense, did not begin until near the centruys end, when images of the modern city came to supplant the time-honored fields of portraiture, history and genre painting, and landscape. The rise of the cityscape coincided with the urbanization of America, with New York at the heart of the cultural shift. Artists both local and transplanted began to portray the urban scene, focusing first on life in the city and later on its singular built environment. Because the cityscape is a pictorial mode developed in the post-photographic era, documentation was never its primary purpose, leading to styles of expression as diverse as the city itself. Honoring the tradition of urban imagery, the Museum of the City of New ork has long been interested in the artists who have captured the city on canvas and paper. Peter Ruta, whose work this exhibition represents, is the first artist to be examined in a new series of exhibitions entitled Picturing New Yor.