Richard Estes

Richard Estes b.1932• Regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-

realist movement of the late 1960s, with painters such as Malcolm Morley, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson.

• Studied fine arts at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He frequently studied the works of realist painters such as Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, and Thomas Eakins, who are strongly represented in the Art Institute's collection.

• Moves to NYC in 1956 and works for the next ten years as a graphic artist for various magazine publishers and advertising agencies.

• In 1967 he begins his Photo-Realistic theme of art.• Considered to be the unrivalled master of cityscape Photo-

Realism.

Richard EstesTelephone Booths (1967) Acrylic on masonite

Richard Estes Nedick's (1970) Oil on canvas

Richard Estes People's Flowers (1971) Oil on canvas.

Looking at Estes’ works:• Estes is very interested in not only the city, but the

how even a city like NYC can have its moments of emptiness --> his works, like all Photo-Realists, are taken from photographs and Estes would wait until there were not people visible to take his photographs.

• Employs an age-old tradition of trompe l'oeil --to fool the eye- which was mastered by Dutch and Italian Renaissance artists.

• Estes' city views include a wealth of signs that indicate a particular time and place: the models of the cars, the publicity awnings, the shop windows, even the clothes worn by passers-by.

Masaccio The Holy Trinity / (1425-27/28)

Oculus on the ceiling of the Spouses Chamber, castle of San Giorgio in

Mantoa, Italy, by Andrea Mantegna

Estes’ Reflections:• Estes' Realism is not the passive reproduction of

what we see but rather a questioning of the visible, hence the almost obsessive use of reflections.

• Reflections appear throughout Estes' work: on cars and buses, in window panes and shop windows and in water.

• The reflections are rarely smooth and uniform, rather they are filled with waves and eddies that alter and distort what is reflected in them--> a sense that perhaps the reflections of reality are not what they seem (ie. Baudrillard’s definition of Hyper-Reality)

Accademia (1980) Oil on canvas

Times Square (2004) Oil on canvas

Detail of Times Square (2000)

Why windows?• At times the world splits into two. A glass wall

traverses the pictorial space as it recedes into depth and divides it into two halves: the inside and the outside of a bus or a shop window.

• The pane of glass sometimes reflects and at other times both reflects and functions as a transparent surface, confusing everything within the painting.

• The windows and the reflections therein confuse our understanding of reality and have us question what it is we are seeing.

• “He is a creator of labyrinths in which the natural and the artificial, reality and appearance, are guests at a masked ball.”

Richard Estes Apollo (1968)

Richard Estes Diner (1971) Oil on canvas

Richard Estes, Central Savings, 1975acrylic and oil on canvas

Richard Estes Downtown-Reflections, 2001

Does Estes embellish?• Estes says that, “You make changes to make is closer to

what it really is.”• He also adds, “"I don't believe that the photograph is the

last word in Realism. I can select what to do or what not to do with the photograph. I can ad or subtract from it…so what I'm trying to paint is not something different but something more like the place I've photographed.“

• What is interesting about this is that concept of simulacrum or a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance.

• Is what Estes paints superficial? If so, why? If not why not?

• Last question: Is Estes a Photo-Realist or a Hyper-Realist?

Richard Estes Holland Hotel (1984 )

Richard Estes. Urban Landscape 1, (1972)

“Reality itself founders in hyperrealism, the meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably through another, reproductive medium such as photography.

‘Hyperrealism is only beyond representation because it functions entirely within the realm of simulation.

‘Now the whole of everyday political, social, historical, economic reality is incorporated into the simulative dimension of hyperrealism.”

-Jean Baudrillard from The Hyper-realism of Simulation

Estes Final Notes:

• Reflections important in his work – they have a ‘solid’ appearance which raises the question, “What is real?”

• Multiple imagery found in a single scene (ie. in the reflections themselves).

• Uses several photos to construct each painting• Through his careers, people become less important (if used) and provides us with ideas about loneliness, alienation, and (artistic) detachment• Uses solid colours and visible brushstrokes turn his paintings into the object, not the reality we think is the object• Takes great care taken in choosing his subjects and formulating composition interest in creating order• Use of the signage in his works which attaches the meaning of 2-D (words) and 3-D the physicality of the sign itself.

Andreas Feninger (Photographer)

The Photojournalist Denis Stock (detail)1951

Reflections in Automobile, 1980.

Reflections in the UN, 1951.