Subway, from "Urban Landscapes III"
Richard Estes American
Printer Michael Domberger German
Publisher Parasol Press Ltd. American
Not on view
Estes is a pioneer in Photorealism, a postwar artistic style characterized by highly detailed or "hyperrealistic" images rendered with extreme precision and detachment. New York features prominently in Estes’s oeuvre; its empty streets, shop windows, and imposing corporate architecture allow him to reduce compositional elements to their most basic geometric forms and to concentrate on the effects of light on reflective glass and metal surfaces. To create his images, Estes combines multiple photographs taken from various angles. In Subway, Estes captures the play of light and shadow, positive and negative space, and textural variations, as well as the contrast between the rigid, cool surfaces of the subway and the colorful and expressionist graffiti marks. His screenprints are remarkably complex; Estes worked from gouache and acrylic templates, which he then photographed and used to create multiple stencils.
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