Paul Russotto Museum

Paul Russotto, an American abstract expressionist, was born in New York in 1944. He took up painting at the Art Students League of New York. In 1963 he opened his studio and began a prolific career, exhibiting in many countries around the world, including Italy, where he bought a house in Todi.
In his art Paul Russotto drew on the past, looking at the painting of Rubens, Courbet, Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Miró, Gorky, De Kooning (whose pupil he became), Pollock and his own contemporaries. He was also in touch with many Italian artists, such as Carla Accardi, Pietro Consagra, Giacinto Cerone and Marino Marini.

Russotto used many techniques, from traditional painting to collages made from fragments of his own destroyed drawings, and “tracings” used as preparatory drawings.

In the restored former barracks of Aliano, under a roof with heavy wooden beams, Russotto’s works stand out against the white walls like new windows opening onto modernity, in contrast with the badlands and the sloping roofs of the old village celebrated by Carlo Levi, which can be glimpsed through the large green doors and windows.

Why are 72 works by this artist in a small Lucanian village among the badlands? Simple: his mother came from Aliano. Meeting the curator Giuseppe Appella brought him even closer to his mother’s homeland and in 2011, with his wife Ellen, he attended the opening of the MIG (International Museum of Graphic Art) in Castronuovo di Sant’Andrea (PZ).

Paul Russotto planned to exhibit his works in Aliano, but his untimely death meant he never saw it happen. His son, Luca Russotto, carried on his father’s project and in 2016 donated 72 works to the municipality of Aliano, giving birth to this small museum of contemporary art among the badlands.