Artist and designer, Richard Pietruska, won the prestigious Peter Helck Award 3 years in a row and numerous Athena Awards of Excellence at Pebble Beach. He is a highly respected professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has been teaching for over 25 years. Many of his former students are the leading automotive designers in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
His career as an automotive designer started early as a winner of the Fisher Body Craftsman Guild and he won a scholarship to study at the Art Center. There he received both a Bachelor of Science Degree in Automotive Design and a Masters of Fine Arts Degree.
With a background in various media from paint to tapestries, his focus is now on automotive sculpture using techniques ranging from bronze casting to cast resin and fiberglass, stainless steel, plastics and whatever comes along that is new and exciting. These sculptures exhibit the dynamic fluid motion of the automobile while simplifying the basic design lines of some of the most exotic vehicles of the past and present.
His work has been featured in various magazines including Road & Track, Automobile Magazine, The Robb Report, AUTOAficionado, Rosso Ferrari, The Star(Mercedes Benz Magazine), Showcase Magazine, Pilota, Octane Magazine, and Garage Magazine.
His sculptures and other work is in many private collections and automotive museums around the world. He was featured in museum shows like VELOC-I-TY, The Art of Motion at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, ART, AUTOMOBILES, PASSION at the Krasl Art Center, the KEMP AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM, and the GRACE MUSEUM.
He is also one of the few automotive sculptors to have been chosen to do the artwork for the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance poster.
In addition he has designed awards and trophies for many automotive events like the Car of the Year Award for Automobile Magazine, Cranbrook Concours d’Elegance, the Petersen Museum and the Newport Beach Concours d’Elegance.
