Photorealism

Presenter name
Agenda Photorealism
Brief History of Photorealism
Photorealism Techniques and
Key Characteristics
Influential Photorealist Artists

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Photorealism
 Photorealism—also referred to as superrealism—is a
genre established by American author and art dealer
Louis K. Meisel in 1969. Rather than observing
events in real-time, the style was inspired
by photography, using the visual information
captured by a camera to create illusionistic paintings,
drawings, and other works of art. Artists would often
project photographs onto canvas to allow the images
to be captured with precision and accuracy.
 Photorealism is a genre in which artists paint an
image originally captured on film. Artists would
often develop and project the original image to
capture the microscopic exactness of it

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Brief History of Photorealism
 Photorealism emerged in the late 1960s, building on Pop art and
Minimalist movements that preceded it. Richard Estes, Chuck Close,
and Ralph Goings were some of the first to attempt exact replication
of photographic imagery, and as a result, are often thought of as the
founders of the movement.
Brief History of Photorealism
 The term was officially coined by Louis K. Meisel when it appeared in a print
as a part of the 1970 Whitney Museum Catalogue, “Twenty-two Realists.”
 Later in 1973, Meisel was asked to develop a five-point definition of the term
for Stuart M. Speiser, who commissioned a large collection of photorealist art
that was later donated to the Smithsonian Museum.
 His definition included a few main points: a camera was necessary to capture
the image or scene and the image from the photo must be transferred to the
workspace through mechanical or semi-mechanical means.
Brief History of Photorealism
 Like Pop artists, photorealists were interested in breaking down conventional
ideas of what was “appropriate” subject matter, often looking to mundane
scenes from everyday life or commercial objects such as cars, trucks, or
signage for inspiration.
 Their use and reliance on mechanical and industrial techniques also mirrored
that of their Pop art predecessors. The movement was, in many ways, a reaction
to the expansion of photographic media, and in the early 1990s, a renewed
interest in photorealism emerged due to the availability of new technology such
as cameras and digital equipment—which offered even greater precision.
 Charles Bell, “Gumball No. 9,” 1975

The way to get

started is to quit
talking and begin
doing.

Walt Disney

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Photorealism Techniques and Key Characteristics
o Hallmarks of photorealism include thorough attention-to-detail as artists strive to
reproduce minute details of a projected photograph with accuracy and precision.
o Often, many will create small studies to work through elements of the work’s
composition, perspective, form, light and shadow before embarking on the final
work.

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Photorealism Techniques and Key Characteristics
There are key techniques and elements included in the process of photorealism,
which are outlined below:
 Use of a camera and photograph to capture an image
 Use of a mechanical or semi-mechanical means (projector, grid method, or
transfer paper) to transmit photographic information to a support (a canvas, sheet
of paper, wooden panel, etc.)
 Technical ability of the artist to make the finished work appear photographic
 Astute attention to quality and detail
 An emphasis on process and planning over improvisation

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Charles Bell
Charles Bell was an American photorealist who
depicted everyday subject matter in large,
grandiose format. He would enlarge ordinary
objects like gumball machines and other instantly
recognizable childhood toys to create large-scale 
still life paintings which can be seen in his 1975
work, Gum Ball No. 10: “Sugar Daddy.”

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Chuck Close
Notable practitioner of the craft Chuck Close creates
monumental portraits through exacting realism that
utilize scale, color, and form. He is most recognized
for his gridded application that takes individual color
squares to form a unified, realistic image from afar.
This technique is realized in his 1998 painting Agnes, a
tribute to his friend Agnes Martin, who also used the
grid technique.

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Robert Cottingham 
Brooklyn-born photorealist Robert Cottingham is best
known for his depiction of urban American landscapes
and typefaces, particularly focusing on building
facades, neon signage, movie marquees, and
storefronts. His works are displayed in radically
cropped compositions which can be seen in some of
his famous compositions like Candy (1979)
and Women-Girls (2000).

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Richard Estes
American artist Richard Estes is known for his
paintings of New York City streets, showcasing an
urban aesthetic which he often composed using
multiple photographs. Estes is known for including
reflective surfaces of storefronts and car windows,
which tend to uncover more detail than what the eye
sees naturally. This is reflected in one of his most
notable works, Supreme Hardware Store (1974), which
depicts a rundown, cluttered city street filled with
reflective signs and storefront windows.

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Audrey Flack
Audrey Flack is a pioneer of the photorealism
movement, and the first photorealist painter whose
work was purchased by New York’s Museum of
Modern Art for its permanent collection. She uses
projecting, tracing, and recoloring to produce
oversized canvases that depict historical events. She
later turned to sculpture to explore female
representations in history.

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Ralph Goings
Ralph Goings is one of the leading members of the
photorealism movement, best known for his paintings
of everyday American life. Much of Goings’ subject
matter was inspired by the hardships of the Great
Depression. His paintings of hamburger stands, pick-
up trucks, banks, and other representations of working-
class America were deliberately objective, particularly
evident in some of his greatest works
including American Salad (1966) and McDonald’s
Pickup (1970).

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Robert Longo
Robert Longo is an American painter and sculpture
who garnered much attention from his “Men in the
Cities” series, which shows businessmen and women
in a state of suspended animation. Longo was also a
member of the Pictures Generation, a group of artists
whose works were linked by the appropriation of
images from mass media in the 1970s and ‘80s. The
majority of his realistic artworks include an array of
imagery from animals like sharks and tigers to nuclear
explosions and guns.

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Influential Photorealist Artist
Ben Weiner
Ben Weiner is a contemporary American artist who
strives to blend the disciplines of photorealism and
abstraction. Weiner photographs paint and other
consumer substances at close range, then uses the
resulting images as his subject matter. In 2011, he
created a series of radially magnified images of thick
paint.

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