Richard Estes (1936)

Professions: Painter

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  Richard Estes , b.1932 Sunday on 2nd avenue oil on canvas

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  Richard Estes (b. 1939)

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  Richard Estes (b. 1939)

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  Richard Estes (b. 1939)

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Richard Estes Biography

(b Kewanee, IL, 14 May 1932). American painter. He moved with his family to Chicago, where he studied at the Art Institute (1952–6), before going to New York, where most of his paintings are set (although later works were often finished in his house in Maine). His first one-man show was held at the Allan Stone Gallery, New York, in 1968. He sustained a careful commitment to an unvarying subject-matter, usually the built environment of Manhattan, and to PHOTOREALISM. His realism is deceptive in that he rearranges the structure of what he originally sees and records through photographs, which form the basis of the final easel-size paintings, to reconstruct reality. He also expands the viewer’s information and sensory field beyond the powers of the naked eye, giving a depth and intensity of vision that only artistic transformation can achieve. Since the paintings are based on more than one photograph, the viewer of an Estes painting perceives, for example, a shop-front window, with a richness that is created by the artist’s technical skills. We can see the surface of the window glass, what it is reflecting, and what is behind it. This characteristic effect is wittily achieved in his Double Self-portrait (1976; New York, MOMA), which shows the artist, a street with parked cars, building façades across the street and commercial signs, all mirrored in a restaurant window. He tries to avoid using obvious New York landmarks, although many of the distinguishing visual characteristics of his work can be seen in his painting of one of the most celebrated art icons of New York, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum (1979; New York, Guggenheim). The scene is devoid of people, giving a Sunday feeling, a clear blue sky and a tonal range of shadow at street level. There is also no litter, which Estes said he found hard to depict. Although he admired the work of Edward Hopper, he was not interested in evoking human moods, and he avoided night scenes. When reconstructing the original scene for the final oil painting in the studio, he used an acrylic ground, which he overpainted in oils.

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