Pitrè exhibition at BoV

The seventh Bank of Valletta exhibition will be focusing on artist Raymond Pitrè.

The exhibition at the bank`s head office foyer, will be open for public viewing from May 25 to June 28. It will feature 49 works of art consisting of paintings, collages, sculptures and other media. The curator of this exhibition is Prof. Kenneth Wain.

Pitrè is one of the best known Maltese artists today and a foremost portrait painter. Born during the war in Balzan, he was raised in Sliema and showed an early talent for drawing while still at school.

Though there were artists in the Pitrè family, he learnt the hard way and is almost entirely self-taught. His first, unsuccessful, attempt to break into the local art world was in 1960 when his painting, Mystic Return of St Paul was rejected by the selection committee for the Sacred Art Exhibition organised to commemorate the conversion of Malta to Christianity by St Paul.

In 1973, he received his first publicity as an artist after painting a portrait of the then Prime Minister Dom Mintoff. In 1976 , he held his first personal exhibition at the Fine Arts Museum in Valletta.

President Guido de Marco and Bank of Valletta chairman Joseph Zahra will inaugurate the exhibition on May 24.