A New Richard Estes Survey Proves There’s More to Photorealism Than Meets the Eye

Photorealism emerged at a rather curious juncture in art history.

By the 1960s, Abstract Expressionism was on the way out and reactionary movements like Pop art and Minimalism were in. Both became so big that it’s easy to forget a third movement was also pushing back on AbEx. Eschewing gesture and emotion, Photorealism championed the meticulous, precise execution of photography.

Richard Estes reigns as the proverbial king of Photorealism, and a new solo show dedicated to the nonagenarian artist at Schoelkopf Gallery in New York offers fresh insight into his career while reexamining how the often-overlooked movement fits within the development of 20th-century American art. “Richard Estes: My Camera Is My Sketchbook,” on view through August 21, brings together new paintings as well as a selection of work from across the last four decades, with a focus on pieces depicting scenes from New York and Maine—the artist’s two long-time bases. It also marks the first time the artist’s photographs, previously shown and understood primarily as reference material, are being shown as artworks unto themselves.

“In the sixties, there was a general impression in the press that there was something inferior about painting realistically,” Estes told me over email. “Abstraction was very popular at the time, but I found it aesthetically boring. The abstract quality of reality is far more exciting than most of the abstract painting that I see.”

American art dealer and gallerist Louis K. Meisel coined the term Photorealism in 1969 and developed several parameters for art and artists to be considered practitioners, including that they use photographs as the source material for their work and that to be considered one of the first generation or originators of the style, they must have exhibited Photorealistic work by 1972. Estes, along with artists like Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, and Charles Bell, was among these originators.

Why Paint When Photography Exists

A question that has dogged Photorealism is “why paint the image if the photograph exists?” Those asking reveal their fundamental misunderstanding of the style.

“For the most part,” Estes said, “my work is constructed images—I suppose with the exception of my new photographs. I have never been interested in exact replication. Usually if you paint something the way it really looks, it doesn’t work as a painting. If I have to choose between authenticity and making a good painting, I’d rather have a good painting.”

It’s a sentiment and approach Estes has maintained across his career. In his 1978 interview with author John Arthur in Richard Estes: The Urban Landscape—timed to his major traveling show that originated at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—he said, “I think with painting it’s a problem of selection and imitation, but it’s never a problem of creation.”

Viewing Estes’ paintings alongside his new photographs at Schoelkopf—which he described as a “natural evolution” of his practice—reveals the subtle and rather ineffable differences between the two. From a distance, the two mediums could be confused, but upon closer inspection the contrasts are sublime.

The compositional execution of works like Holland Hotel (1980) is immaculate, but with prolonged looking the essential qualities of paint on canvas are unavoidable. The flatness of the distant buildings and the planes of glass in the foreground are accentuated despite (or rather because of) the unyielding nature of pigment on support.

The quality of painting is further accentuated by Estes’ depiction of water—a perennial source of inspiration for the artist alongside glass. In Sailing (1999), the waves shown rippling off the bow of the boat vividly conjure sunlight and sea spray, but looking at them individually reveals Estes allowed himself (albeit briefly) a degree of painterly latitude, contributing to the sense of movement and atmosphere.

“Somehow the paint and the intensity of color emphasize the light and do things to build up form that a photograph does not do,” Estes continued. “In that way, the painting is superior to the photograph. Painting is trickery, because you can make people respond by guiding their eyes around the picture. The photograph doesn’t do that because a camera doesn’t have ideas. It can only reproduce, so you have to use a lot of trickery.”

Perhaps more than any other aspect, what Photorealism leverages is one of the most foundational elements of artmaking itself: careful looking, and the understanding that everything you see is the product of the artist’s creative vision.

A Style with Staying Power

Despite its visual appeal, Photorealism has never received the same critical and popular reception as Minimalism or Pop. But with the wave of art-historical reappraisals over the last few years, the Estes survey at Schoelkopf makes the case that his paintings, photographs, and works on paper deserve the same treatment.

While not currently in the art world limelight, it is perhaps Photorealism’s longstanding, under-the-radar status that has allowed the style to carry on across the decades as it has; artists working within the realm are designated as such, rather than “in the style of.” And galleries like, of course, Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York have continued to support and promote both the original and subsequent generations of Photorealistic painters through today.

“My Camera Is My Sketchbook” offers yet another perspective on the relationship between painting and Photorealism. As the title suggests, photography is a key component of Estes’ practice in the same way sketching with pencil and paper is for so many other painters, and the two mediums are not in fact at odds or competition. Both are essential facets of the history and trajectory of American art.