Artist: Peter Ruting (1938-2015)

The red line, 1981, C-print, signed in margin, numbered verso, edition 19/55, size 37x50cm, printed by the artist.

Literature: Peter Ruting, The Images of Thought, publisher Trendboek BV, 1988, page 15.

Provenance: private collection Robert Gesink, purchased directly from the artist in 1988.

Peter Ruting (1938-2015) was educated at Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs, where Jaap d’Oliveira was his lecturer, and started in 1960 as photographer. He opened a studio in 1968, and produced photography for advertising agencies, corporate clients, architects. He worked for more then ten years closely with art-director Paul Mertz at the agency Prad. Photographers had a big say in the advertisements campaigns those days. So as a photographer he was strongly involved with the famous milk and cheese commercials they made.

Slowly he changed in the direction of his own projects, first shown to a large audience at the Canon Photo Gallery in Amsterdam in the year 1983. Folowed by exhibitions in Paris (Galerie Daguerre and FNAC Etoile in 1984), and Londen (the Photographer’s Gallery  in 1985). And Santa Barbara, CA (Western States Museum) and Carmel, CA (Weston Gallery), both in 1988. He published the book De Gedachten Gevormd in 1988 (publ. Trendboek BV).

Work of Peter Ruting has been purchased by the Dutch government, Kodak, the Visual Art Fioundation in the Netherlands and many private collectors.