About the artist

Richard Estes is an Americain painter and photographer, best known for his photorealist paintings. The painting generally consist of reflective, clean and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photorealist movement of the late 1960s. From 1952 until 1956, he studied fine arts at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. After this, he moved to New York City and for the next ten years worked as a graphic artist for various magazine publishers and advertising agencies in New York and Spain. He painted in his spare time during this period. Estes paintings were based on several photographs of the subject. He always stayed true to the photographs he used, for example depicting window displays backwards because of the reflection. His works strive to create convincing three-dimensionality on a two-dimensional canvas. Estes had a one-man show in 1968 at the Allan Stone Gallery and his works have also been exhibited at among others the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1971, Estes was granted a National Council for the Arts fellowship and in the same year he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. He became a full Academician in 1984.

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