A PowerPoint presentation about photorealism.

1. Photorealism
Presenter name

2. Photorealism Techniques and
Key Characteristics
Influential Photorealist Artists
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3.  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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4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. The way to get
started is to
quit
talking and
begin doing.
Walt Disney
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Charles Bell, “Gumball No. 9,” 1975

8. 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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9. 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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10. 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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11. 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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12. 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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13. 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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14. 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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15. 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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16. 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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17. 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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