In 1970 Peter had his 5th one person show at the Richard Gray Gallery in downtown Chicago. That’s pretty impressive for a person who just started his professional art career 6 years before. The show, all female figurative works, painted in sepia tones consisted of about 11 paintings that ranged in size from 30x30 - 66x66. By eliminating color in these paintings it gave Peter a firm grasp of how form can be modeled by light and shadow thus creating interesting patterns on the figure and in the background.
In 1971 three figurative paintings were loaned from the Richard Gray Gallery to Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts in Tallahassee for a show titled Realism & Figuration. Those paintings were titled Marge (1970 48x48), Anita with Sheet (1970 48x48) and Anita with DiSuvero (1970 54x54). Included in this exhibition were works by Philip Pearlstein and Jack Beal. There was a catalog for the show and the forward was written by the Assistant Professor of Art. He writes of Peter’s work “His females are risque’, willful-they confront the viewer physically. They prompt a discussion of the difference between the nude and the naked. Nakedness relates to the viewer, who may react somewhat defensively at first but then should accept the humor of it all, despite the sinister implications of the somber, dark sepia tone of the paintings.” The overview of the show catalog goes on to state: “The direct reference of the painter to the model, still life or landscape implies that the painter prefers to rely on his own experience of the referential subject through seeing, enhanced by his own power of articulation.” The university purchased Marge for their permanent collection.
In 2023 we were contacted by the University of Kentucky in Lexington about a painting titled Anita in Rocker. The painting was donated to the university back in 1976. In the spring/summer of 2023 the painting was included in an exhibition at the university. The show was titled Among Women. The show was in response to the overturned Roe V Wade Supreme Court decision in June of 2022. In solidarity for women's reproductive health and control over their own bodies the museum chose to use artwork that represented women of many ages, backgrounds and orientations. Works by Alex Katz, Andy Warhol, Alice Neel and Doris Ulmann were also represented.