Brian Rutenberg in his New York City studio.
The vibrant, colorful abstract paintings of Brian Rutenberg are inspired by the landscape of his birthplace in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Each painting is a highlight of his artistic evolution, illuminating the magnetic, enduring appeal of his Art that has made Brian Rutenberg one of this country’s most popular painters.
As a young and ambitious artist, Rutenberg sought to capture a unique representation of the landscape through abstraction, recalling his time spent growing up between Pawley’s Island and Charleston, where rivers and lakes merge with the ocean. A graduate of the College of Charleston, Brian Rutenberg participated in his first group exhibition in 1985 and then moved to New York where he earned a Master of Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts.
Like the generation of New York Abstract Expressionist artists before him such as Gregory Amenoff, Joan Mitchell and Hans Hofmann, Brian Rutenberg executes paintings that embrace spirituality, love of color, and a passion for paint. Although nature continues to be the major theme, each of his paintings show a brand-new approach and vision.
Brian Rutenberg joined Forum Gallery in 2001, soon after a year of travel in Ireland on a Fulbright Scholarship. Heavily influenced by the arabesques of pure abstraction found in Celtic Culture, this formative experience cemented for the Artist that while the landscape was a starting point for his paintings, they were not “about landscape.” Images refer to trees, ponds, and atmospheric hazes but these anchor points give way to color and love, turning Rutenberg’s paintings into deeply emotive portals to places of palpable energy and harmonious contrasts.
Brian Rutenberg has had over two hundred exhibitions throughout the United States. Radius Books published a full color monograph in 2008 and in 2016 Permanent Green published "Clear Seeing Place", a companion to the artist’s popular YouTube series, "Brian Rutenberg Studio Visits".
Rutenberg’s most recent monograph, "A Little Long Time", was published to coincide with his 2020 solo exhibition at Forum Gallery. The work of Brian Rutenberg is included in the collections of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AR), Bronx Museum of Art (NY), Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OK), Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum (Myrtle Beach, SC), Mint Museum of Art (Charlotte, NC), Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), South Carolina State Museum (Columbia, SC), Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT), and many others. In 2025, Brian Rutenberg was commissioned to create a monumental 14-foot painting for The Duke Endowment headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Brian Rutenberg is represented by Forum Gallery.