b'photography, Ruttenbergs obsession as a painter with scores of itinerant strangers resting and basking in the park comes as a surprise, since she seems rather private by nature.An energetic workaholic perfectionist, Ruttenberg has never been obliged to exhibit her work commercially, so her art remains something of a se-cret, except to family members and a few lucky insiders. Her lack of con-cern for recognition from the mainstream art world in New York at first prompted me to consider her as a sort of 21st century version of the mod-ernist Florine Stettheimer, who kept her own vibrant paintings of urbane New Yorkers to herself and her closest friends. I was simply overwhelmed when Ruttenberg opened the door to her studio, and I suddenly encoun-tered a lifetimes work all at once, utterly sophisticated, always experi-'