Small Green Portrait

Peter Passuntino (http://www.passuntino.com)
b. 1936
Peter Passuntino, was born in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 18, Passuntino was selected to be in a group show at the Carnegie Institute, and at 19 he was selected for a one-man show at the Artist Guild in Chicago. From 1954 to 1958 he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Then, upon receiving a Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, Passuntino spent time in Paris, from 1963 to 1965. While in Paris he studied art at the Istitut de Arts et Archeologie and exhibited in a solo exhibition entitled “Bad Manners, A Happening at the American Arts Center” (1963). During his time at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Passuntino was an organizer of the Exhibition Momentum Group, and he served as the group’s chairman in 1958. The Exhibition Momentum Group was successful in expanding the Chicago-Midwest art community and in bringing emerging and established artists from the East Coast to Chicago as panelists and jurors of the exhibitions.

In 1969, The Rhino Horn Group was founded in New York City by a group of artists bound together by their dedication to figurative art and a collective notion that artistic practice should have both a critical and a social function. They critiqued the art-as-business ideology that absorbed fine arts into consumer culture in the United States during the 1960s.

The seven founding members were Peter Passuntino (b. 1936), Benny Andrews (1930-2006), Jay Milder (b. 1934), Peter Dean (1934-1993), Ken Bowman (1937-2014), Michael Fauerbach (1942-2011), and Nicholas Sperakis (b. 1943). Between 1969 and 1978, active members also included Bill Barrell (b. 1932), Leonel Góngora (1932-1999), Isser Aronovici (1932-1994), June Leaf (b. 1929), and Joseph Kurhajec (b. 1938). In addition, Rhino Horn included exhibiting guest artists Christopher Lane (b. 1937), Red Grooms (b. 1937), and Lester Johnson (1919-2010).