SALERNO, ITALY.- Il Catalogo Gallery in Salerno, opens the exhibition Peter Ruta, Positano e altri dipinti italiani, last in a series launched by the gallery this year devoted to the artists and the history of the region.

The exhibition, curated by Massimo Bignardi, presents eighteen paintings Ruta completed in Positano, Rome, Naples and Venice between 1949 and 1962, along with drawings and gouaches the artist, now ninety-one years of age, completed during several recent trips to the Amalfi Coast.

Peter Ruta is returning to the town where, after the Second World War, he was part of a lively cultural scene in the 1950s and 60s. Positano, a poor fishing village on the Amalfi Coast, in those days drew many well known artists and writers, John Steinbeck, Kurt Craemer, Han Harloff, Stefan Anders, Bruno Marquardt, Randy Morgan, Arroyo Schifano, Cremonini. Even Andy Warhol made an appearance. A privileged place, a privileged time, when an international group of artists fell under the spell of Mediterranean light.

Along with Ruta’s paintings of the mythic Amalfi coast, views of Venice, where the artist lived from 1948 – 1950, Rome, Naples, Stromboli and the island of Elba are included in this show designed by gallery directors Lelio Schiavone and Antonio Adiletta in collaboration with Enzo Esposito, a rare opportunity to pay homage to the Positano of those years, a place, Lelio Schiavone recalls, “where the main beach at Positano was full of these incredible figures, artists from all over the world, who made an impression on the young curious kids we were.”

Il Catalogo Gallery, founded in 1968 by Schiavone and poet Alfonso Gatto, has shown just about every important Italian painter of the second half of the 20th century and been a lively meeting place for artists, writers and thinkers in Salerno for over forty years, recognized by the Ministry of Culture as a national treasure.

Peter Ruta, born in Germany, raised in Italy, a U.S. citizen since 1943, has painted and shown his work in Italy, the U.S. and Mexico for over sixty years. In 2000 and 2001 he painted the view from the 9lst floor of the north tower, World Trade Center. In 2004 his paintings of downtown New York were the subject of a thirty year retrospective at the Museum of the City of New York.

In 2008 the city of Leipzig, where he spent his early childhood, celebrated his 90th birthday with a major retrospective. He lives and works in New York. The exhibit will run through June 20th.