Richard Estes http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/estes_richard.html Richard Estes [American Photorealist Painter, born in 1936] • Browse all: American artists I don't enjoy looking at the things I paint, so why should you enjoy it? - Richard Estes, quoted by Anthony Haden-Guest in True Colors Richard Estes in Commercial Galleries and Auction Houses NEW! Paintings in Museums and Public Art Galleries: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco http://search.famsf.org:8080/search.shtml?keywords=richard+estes 01 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 560, from the series Urban Landscapes 1, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.112 02 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Seagram Building, from the series Urban Lanscapes 1, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.111 03 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Urban Landscape: No. 6, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.110 04 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Urban Landscape: No. 5, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.109 05 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Danbury Tile, from the series Urban Landscapes 1, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.108 06 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Grant's, from the series Urban Landscapes 1, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.107 07 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Urban Landscape: No. 2, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.106 08 Richard Estes, artist American, 1932 Urban Landscape: No. 1, 1972 Color screenprint 50.8 x 71.1 cm Anderson Graphic Arts Collection, gift of the Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation 1996.74.105 Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. http://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/search.asp?Artist=Estes+Richard&hasImage =1 09 Richard Estes American, born Kewanee, Illinois,1932 Diner 1971 Oil on canvas 40 1/8 x 50 in. (101.7 x 126.8 cm.) Museum Purchase, 1977 (77.75 ) Exhibitions History NASSAU COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART, Roslyn Harbor, New York. "Photorealism: Painting and Sculpture," 25 January-25 April 2004, ill. p. 20, p.36. 10 Richard Estes American, born Kewanee, Illinois,1932 Qualicraft Shoes/Chinese Lady 1974 Color silkscreen on paper mounted on paper-clad aluminum 33 3/8 x 46 15/16 in. (84.8 x 119.1 cm.) (77.250 ) 11 Richard Estes American, born Kewanee, Illinois,1932 Waverly Place 1980 Oil on canvas 36 1/4 x 80 3/8 in. (91.9 x 204.1 cm.) Museum Purchase, 1980 (80.154 ) Exhibitions History JANE VOORHEES ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ. "American Photorealism," 12 December 2004 - 27 March 2005, no. 32, ill. p. 61. TOUR: PREFECTURAL MUSEUM OF IWATE, Japan, 4 April - 16 May 2004; CITY MUSEUM OF IWAKI, Japan, 22 May - 3 July 2004; KUMAMOTO PREFECTURAL MUSEUM OF ART, Japan, 16 July - 5 September 2004; HOKODATE MUSEUM OF ART, Hokkaido, Japan, 22 September - 7 November 2004. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri http://www.kemperart.org/permanent/works/Estes.asp 12 Richard Estes Born 1932 in Kewanee, IL Lives and works in New York, NY Water Taxi, Mount Desert 1999 oil paint on canvas 35 x 66 1/4 inches Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation 2002.13 Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York http://www.nassaumuseum.com/pastexhibits/past_explosivephotos.htm 13 Richard Estes Hotel Empire 1987 oil on canvas, 96" x 96" Carefully look at this oil painting. Does it look like a painting or more like a photograph? What does the artist do to make it look like a photograph? Look at the sharp focus, the high finish and the details. Richard Estes bases his compositions on his own color photographs, but he manipulates what appears in the photograph. He alters details, although he keeps buildings and major elements that appeared in the photograph that inspires a painting. Many times he uses many photographs and he edits them into what he wants the composition of his painting to be. That is why sometimes you can see many points of view at the same time. Look at this painting, where is the artist located? Would you say that there is a vanishing point in the way that perspective is done? Do you see more than one vanishing point? How could this be if the painter was standing in one place and painting from that spot? What lines do your eyes follow? If you follow the line of the window on the left and the white line of the street your eyes goes to the back of the painting, but tries to see two spots at the same time. Can you find any people in this painting? Where could they be? What time of the day is it? Can you tell what season it is? Is this a city street? What feeling do you get when you look at this painting? Did it remind you of any other work of art that you just looked at? Curiously enough, both Estes and Crewdson feel very inspired by Hopper's work. Have you seen any of Hopper's work? If so, can you make any connections? Think about light, space, emptiness, solitude. If you haven't seen any of Hopper's works do some research and try to make comparisons, keeping in mind that Estes and Crewdson were inspired by his work. National Academy of Design, New York City http://www.nationalacademy.org/perm/estes.html 14 Richard Estes ANA 1971; NA 1984 Parking Lot, n.d. Oil on composition panel, 23 3/4 x 36 in. NA diploma presentation, January 7, 1987 (1987.5) Seavest Collection of Contemporary American Realism http://artregister.com/SeavestIntroductiontoCollection/Catalogue/EstesSpirit.ht ml 15 Richard Estes Spirit 1995-96 oil and acrylic on canvas, 38 x 65 1/2 in. Richard Estes at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. http://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artworks1.cfm?StartRow=1&ConID=1 461&format=short&db=onlyart&LastName=&FirstName=&Title=&Accession= &Keyword 16 Richard Estes Ten Doors 1972 Smithsonian American Art Museum 1973.4 Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid http://coleccionctb.museothyssen.org/ColeccionCTB/eng_accesible/htm/obra3 42/ficha_accesible.htm 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN AND BRITISH PAINTING 17 ESTES, Richard (Kewanee, 1932) Nedick’s Oil sobre canvas, 121.9 x 167.6 cm Estes belongs to a rich history of artists who have depicted New York City. He is known for his street scenes of Downtown Manhattan and of Manhattan’s Upper West Side and has revealed a detailed knowledge of the city’s diverse architecture, infrastructure and habitants. Although not a native New Yorker, New York has been his home for over thirty years, and he continues to explore what have become familiar locations in his work. The Ansonia, an old Beaux-Arts building, and its surrounding streets on the Upper West Side, for example, became a favoured motif in the 1970s and recurs in paintings from the 1980s and 1990s. These latter-day versions may well record the site’s changes, but this is a by-product. More significantly they show Estes’ maturation and his ability to reinvent continually. Estes’ principal concern is not with recording the city, but manipulating its various structures and surfaces to explore specific pictorial changes. The composition of his earlier street scenes is characterised by a slant reflection, in which the street on one side of the painting is reflected in a window on the other. More recently he has widened these street scenes to include several streets moving away at different angles. In both cases he is inventing methods to organise space and move the viewer into and across the painting’s complexity. Such works have an organisational geometry which, although suggested by the site, is the outcome of considerable spatial and compositional changes. For Estes does not imitate reality but, through a painting process which is fluid and openended, he constructs a world of bracing clarity and exacting order. Estes’ paintings often deal with the juxtaposition of interior and exterior spaces, which is evident in Nedick’s, 1970, the first painting wherein the artist began to expand his view and imagery to go beyond the close-up, straightforward inspection of storefronts, windows and reflections. Estes began moving toward his mature Photorealist works with his depictions of reflections in automobile windows and shiny metal. He then raised his camera and focused on close-up renditions of store front windows, with attention to what was in the windows as well as what was reflected in the windows. Nedick’s, 1970, for the first time shows a distant cityscape off to the left side of the painting. This is a pivotal work in other ways as well. The artist chose a subject which allowed him to find and paint reflections not only on the window surface, but on the mirrors twenty feet back into the store. The painting also includes areas where the viewer looks through windows and doors back to the outside and off into the distance. This contributed to the complexity and awakened the artist to the artistic challenges he could and would undertake in the new decade. The short depth of the interior and the distant view of the city street are also precursors and predictions of work Estes would do in the 1980s and 1990s as he split his images between short interiors of buses, trains and boats and the long views of bridges, water and city landscapes. As the 1970s progressed he became firmly accepted as the leading and most important artist in the movement called Photorealism. Louis K. Meisel Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid People's Flowers 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN AND BRITISH PAINTING 18 ESTES, Richard (Kewanee, 1932) People’s Flowers Oil sobre canvas, 162,6 x 92,7 cm Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Richard Estes describes himself as a realist painter although he is more often described as a Photorealist. In fact, he is regarded as one of the founders of the Photorealist movement which emerged in America in the late 1960s. His paintings, in reproduction at least, may remind us of photography, and Estes has always used the camera to collect and record information from which he can paint, but he has never been concerned with copying the appearance of a photograph. Unlike many Photorealists, Estes is not interested in making paintings which show how the camera records information. He avoids painting areas of photographic focus and blur. Photography enables him to capture a moment in all its complexities and has resulted in a remarkably intricate representation of refracted light. However, because a photograph is limited by mechanics of exposure, focus and a single fixed lens, Estes compensates by painting from an assemblage of many photographs. Taken by himself, on location, what Estes’ paintings share with photography is an authenticity. As with photography, we regard Estes’ paintings to be a truthful representation of reality. But, on examination, it is clear that the means by which Estes represents the world is very different from photography. Estes, for example, introduces directional mark making to reveal form, in contrast to the homogenous flatness of the photograph, and makes substantial alterations to the construction of illusionistic space. The truth in an Estes painting is very different from that of the truth of a photograph. Ultimately, it is authentic not to the reality of our world, but the world created by the individual painter. As a realist, Estes utilises the particularities of the world around him to extend and develop his own artistic vision, and in so doing, orientates himself within a long tradition of painters such as Vermeer, Bellotto, Eakins, Hopper and Sheeler, all of whom he admires. People’s Flowers is early, pivotal, well known and one of Richard Estes’ very best and most important paintings. The clarity, colour, subject matter and composition indicate a totally mature and fully developed Estes, leader of the Photorealist Movement at a point in time when all but a few of the other artists were still struggling to perfect their visions and styles. First, it is interesting to note that there are only five major Estes paintings with a vertical format (over four feet, or 125 cm, high). This was not a favoured format for the artist. However, the composition is innovative and flawlessly conceived. The concentric rectangles of the buildings and window frame bring the eye to the central focus point, the neon sign People’ s Flowers. The line of trucks and the outdoor plants point to the sign as well. The sky in the reflection on the window also does the same thing. The descending width of the mirrored sign and the awning sign also bring the eye to the centre of the painting. The clarity of the reflection and the contrast of the primary-coloured red brick above the secondary-coloured green below are striking visual effects. Artists try forever to create this kind of eye-arresting imagery. It is the domain of the Photorealist, however, to discover and recognise this vision in the world around him, and then to capture it with the camera and recreate it with brush and paint. You who view this painting can and will begin to realise how to “look” and “see” and will be aware of the world you exist in in a new way. Louis K. Meisel. Professional Tools: Artprice (You need to register for access to some research tools. Click "Free express check-in" on the login panel.) • Art auction prices for Richard Estes. Up-to-date record of works sold at art auctions worldwide (payment is required in order to see the actual selling price). • Biography for Richard Estes. • Other features: Be informed of upcoming auctions of works by an artist. Detailed art market analysis by artist. Access to images and documentation from 270,000 sale catalogues. Check for "Richard Estes" in the Sotheby's Sold Lot Archive (opens in a new window) (Most lots from year 2000 onwards are illustrated.) 19_4G6S9_L05023-245 LOT 245 RICHARD ESTES B. 1936 TICKET WINDOW 60,000—90,000 GBP Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 96,000 GBP MEASUREMENTS 77.2 by 51.7cm.; 30 3/8 by 20 3/8 in. DESCRIPTION signed oil on canvas Executed in 1969. 20_4BBQ4_N08021-430 LOT 430 RICHARD ESTES B. 1936 HOLLAND HOTEL 8,000—10,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 20,400 USD MEASUREMENTS sheet c. 1220 by 1830 mm 48 by 72 in DESCRIPTION Screenprint in colors, 1984, signed in gold ink and numbered 83/100 (total edition includes 15 artist's proofs), published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with full margins, apparently in good condition, framed* (not examined out of frame) 21_48P72_L04023-273 LOT 273 PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ALEXANDER WALKER RICHARD ESTES B. 1936 STATEN ISLAND FERRY WITH VIEW OF EAST RIVER 35,000—45,000 GBP Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 62,400 GBP MEASUREMENTS 45.5 by 40.5cm.; 17 7/8 by 16in. DESCRIPTION signed and dated 93 oil on canvas PROVENANCE Marlborough Gallery, New York 22_487GX_PF4021-259 LOT 259 RICHARD ESTES NÉ EN 1936 AIRSTREAM 20,000—30,000 EUR Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 50,400 EUR MEASUREMENTS 35 x 53 cm ; 14 x 21 in DESCRIPTION signé gouache sur papier Exécuté en 1974. 23_47PVK_N07993-45 LOT 45 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION RICHARD ESTES B. 1936 34TH STREET, MANHATTAN, LOOKING EAST 400,000—600,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 568,000 USD MEASUREMENTS 91 by 91 in. 231.1 by 231.1 cm. DESCRIPTION signed and dated NEH 82 oil on canvas PROVENANCE Allan Stone Gallery, New York Marlborough Gallery, Inc., New York Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1995 EXHIBITED Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art; Osaka, The Museum of Art, Kintetsu; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Richard Estes, July – October 1990, cat. no. 25, p. 43 and cover, illustrated in color New York, Marlborough Gallery, Richard Estes, May - June 1995 LITERATURE AND REFERENCES Louis Meisel, Richard Estes: The Complete Paintings, 1966 - 1985, New York, 1986, pl. no. 1, illustrated John Arthur, Richard Estes: Paintings and Prints, San Francisco, 1993, p. 40, illustrated CATALOGUE NOTE 34th Street, Manhattan, Looking East is a classic example of Richard Estes’s New York city paintings for which he became so celebrated. Photo-realism, super-realism, or hyper-realism – all of these terms have been used to describe the picture perfect paintings of Richard Estes. But is there an abstraction behind all of the precisely executed images so familiar to the everyday bystander. Small sections of Estes’s paintings -intersections, reflections, lines and shapes - taken out of the whole picture become abstracted, like a cubist painting, or perhaps a Mondrian – the master of geometric reduction. The staggering detail serves to give the painting both a super-realistic feeling as well as a slightly abstracted one. John Canaday notes, “Never before have there been cityscapes exactly like these, where the haphazard conjunctions of commonplace details are transformed into a matrix that would be violated if any of its multitudinous bits and pieces were excised from the mass. If the function of art is to impose order on the chaotic material of human experience...then Estes is a classicist in paintings.... (John Canaday in Exh. Cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Richard Estes: The Urban Landscape, Boston, 1978, p. 10)”. Estes masterfully executes three-dimensional volumes in a space defined by perspective in a two-dimensional surface with the use of light, shadow and a technical prowess which is seldom seen today. 24_42L88_N01730-177 LOT 177 Property of a Corporate Collection RICHARD ESTES (B. 1932) AIRPORT WINDOW; MOVIES; THROUGH OFFICE WINDOW (FROM URBAN LANDSCAPES III) 3,000—5,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 3,300 USD MEASUREMENTS each 14 by 20in. 35.6 by 50.8cm DESCRIPTION each signed in pencil and numbered 101/250, screenprints in color on Fabriano paper, from the suite of 8, Urban Landscapes III, published by Parasol Press Ltd., New York, 1981, each framed (3 prints) This lot is sold subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Sale. As stated in the Conditions, all lots are sold on an "AS IS" basis. Prospective bidders should review the Conditions, Glossary and Buying at Auction guide 25_3W8T6_N07843-259 LOT 259 Property from a Private Swiss Collection RICHARD ESTES (B. 1936) DECK OF STATEN ISLAND FERRY WITH VIEW OF MANHATTAN 60,000—80,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 59,750 USD MEASUREMENTS 23 1/2 by 12 5/8in. 59.7 by 32.1cm DESCRIPTION signed and dated 95 oil on canvas Provenance: Marlborough Gallery, New York Acquired by the present owner from the above Exhibited: New York, Marlborough Gallery, Richard Estes: New York Paintings, May June 1995, p. 14, illustrated This lot is sold subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Sale. As stated in the Conditions, all lots are sold on an "AS IS" basis. Prospective bidders should review the Conditions and Buying at Auction guide. 251_3Z3PT_N07888-431.jpg LOT 431 RICHARD ESTES (B. 1936) HOLLAND HOTEL 8,000—10,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 8,400 USD MEASUREMENTS sheet c. 1220 by 1830mm 48 by 72in. DESCRIPTION Screenprint in colors, 1984, signed in gold ink and inscribed 'A.P', one of 15 artist's proofs, aside from the numbered edition of 100, published by Petersburg Press, New York, apparently in good condition, framed *(not examined out of frame) This lot is sold subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Sale. As stated in the Conditions, all lots are sold on an "AS IS" basis. Prospective bidders should review the Conditions, Glossary and Buying at Auction guide. 26_3W82R_N07835-538 LOT 538 Property from a Private Midwest Collector RICHARD ESTES B. 1936 URBAN LANDSCAPES II 8,000—12,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 8,365 USD MEASUREMENTS each image: 505 by 338mm 19 7/8 by 13 1/4in. DESCRIPTION The complete portfolio, comprising eight screenprints in colors, 1979, each signed in pencil and numbered 18/100 (total edition includes 15 artist's proofs), on Fabriano paper, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with full margins, in good condition apart from traces of pale light stain, framed *(five not examined out of frames) (8 prints) This lot is sold subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Sale. As stated in the Conditions, all lots are sold on an "AS IS" basis. Prospective bidders should review the Conditions and Buying at Auction guide. 27_PFZ2_N07717-646 LOT 646 Richard Estes (b. 1936) 8,000—10,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 15,600 USD DESCRIPTION Richard Estes (b. 1936) URBAN LANDSCAPES The complete portfolio, comprising eight screenprints in colors, 1972, each signed in pencil and numbered 31/75, on Schoellers Parole paper, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., with full margins, in good condition, contained in original beige linen-covered portfolio (with surface soiling and wear) (8 prints) each sheet c. 499 by 698mm. 19 5/8 by 27 1/2 in. 28_PFZ3_N07717-647 PFZ3_N07717-647.jpg LOT 647 Richard Estes (b. 1936) 8,000—10,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 9,000 USD DESCRIPTION Richard Estes (b. 1936) URBAN LANDSCAPES III The complete portfolio, comprising eight screenprints in colors, 1981, each signed in pencil, dated and numbered 25/250 (total edition includes 15 artist's proofs), on Fabriano paper, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with full margins, in good condition, contained in original green linen-covered portfolio (8 prints) each 355 by 506mm. 14 by 19 7/8 in. 29_RZYF_NY7550-58 RZYF_NY7550-58 LOT 58 Richard Estes 200,000—300,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 203,750 USD DESCRIPTION RZYF_NY7550-58.jpg Richard Estes b. 1936 REVOLVING DOORS oil on mansonite 30 by 40 in. 76.2 by 101.6 cm. Painted in 1968. Provenance Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York Dr. Jack E. Chachkes, New York Exhibited Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art; Osaka, The Museum of Art; Horoshima, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Richard Estes, 1990, cat. no. 6, p. 23, illustrated in color Literature Louis K. Meisel, Richard Estes: The Complete Paintings 1966-1985, New York, 1986, cat. no. 30, p. 45, illustrated in color Pictures from Image Archives: Richard Estes at CGFA http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/e/e-4.htm#estes 30_estes2 Richard Estes Central Savings 1975 oil on canvas Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. 139KB 31_estes1 Richard Estes Cafe Express 1975 oil on canvas The Art Institute of Chicago. 133KB Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur (in German) http://www.bildindex.de/rx/apsisa.dll/registerinhalt?sid=&cnt=&rid=2&aid=*&qu ery=+xdbpics%3Aalle%20+r1a_name%3A'E*'%20%20+r1a_name%3A%22es tes,%20richard%22&no=1&count=50&sort=no&rid=2 32_mi03349f02b obj 00071219: Estes, Richard Broadway 2 Bild, Aachen, Sammlung Ludwig, Peter & Ludwig, Irene 33_mi01554e03b obj 05010033: Estes, Richard Food Shop 1967 Bild, Köln, Museum Ludwig, ML 01188 California State University WorldArt Web Kiosk http://worldart.sjsu.edu/4DACTION/HANDLECGI/CTN1?theKW=Richard+EST ES&RefineSearch=NewSelection Detroit Institute of Arts Image Database http://diamondial.org/cgi-local/DiaImage.cgi?acc=1985.30 34_1985.30 Welcome to 42nd Street (Victory Theatre) 1968 Oil on masonite x 61 Estes, Richard American b.1936 Founders Society Purchase with funds from the Friends of Modern Art in honor of the Detroit Institute of Arts Centennial Accession Number 1985.30 Other Web Sites: hyperrealism·net http://www.hyperrealism.net/tableau%207.htm 35_Estes%203 Richard Estes Apollo 1968 Collection de l'artiste 61 x 91,4 cm © Richard Estes Apollo, 1968 Articles: artcritical, the online magazine of art and ideas A Dialogue Between Gregory J. Peterson and Richard Estes http://www.artcritical.com/studiovisit/GPEstes.htm Highbeam Research - Search Millions of Published Articles for Richard Estes (register for free trial membership to see full text of articles)