Woman Playing a Lute Oil on Canvas Tomasz Rut, Poland 1961-

Tomasz Rut, Polish (1961 - )

Tomasz Rut was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland. At the age of eleven, his first drawings, collected by his mother frequently from his school notebooks in lieu of good school grades, were exhibited at a solo gallery show, receiving a write-up in Warsaw Daily.

Tomasz Rut was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, the son of an Olympic athlete father and artist mother who together encouraged a love of art and the classics. During his childhood Rut was introduced to the Pompeii Frescos as well as Renaissance and Baroque art, which have influenced his oils on canvas, murals, and graphic works. Rut had his first showing in Warsaw at the age of eleven..

Rut was admitted to the Academy of Art in Warsaw, however he opted to continue his education in New York City at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and at Columbia University in Manhattan. He eventually took a job in art conservation for the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, traveling the east coast restoring large scale murals in museums and mansions for such clients as the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, DC, the New Jersey State House in Trenton, The Gusman Center for the Arts and Vizcaya Museum in Miami.

It was during these travels he began to notice the void of figurative paintings from the past that one could purchase, so Rut invented a style aimed at filling this void. This style incorporated cracked canvasses that mimic aged Italian frescoes and figurative oils.

The subjects of Rut's paintings, whether a figure, horse, or object, are at the center of every work, surrounded by compressed space with few background details to distract from the subject. Evoking the passion of Michelangelo, the subtlety of Carravaggio and the flamboyance of Rubens, his artwork resurrects the dormant classical tradition of painting in a XXI century tribute to the perseverance of the human ability and spirit, which transcends the ebbs and flows of modern fashions.

Artist Tomasz Rut was named one of the most collectible artists in the US by the Robb Report in 1999.