ME: Portland

 

“Water Taxi, Mount Desert”, oil on canvas, 35 x 66 ¼ inches, 1999, by Richard Estes. Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MIssouri, Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection. Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, 2002.13.© Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.
“Water Taxi, Mount Desert”, oil on canvas, 35 x 66 ¼ inches, 1999, by Richard Estes. Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MIssouri, Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection. Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, 2002.13.© Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.

 

WHERE: Portland Museum of Art.

WHEN: On view through September 7, 2014.

Richard Estes’ Realism

BRIEF ABOUT: This exhibition is the most comprehensive survey since 1991 of the paintings of Richard Estes, the foremost practitioner of American photorealism who is renowned for his precise, crystalline style.

“Brooklyn Bridge,” 1991, oil on canvas, 84 by 84 inches. Private collection. ©Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.
“Brooklyn Bridge,” 1991, oil on canvas, 84 by 84 inches. Private collection. ©Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.

     Encompassing more than 45 works, the show spans from Estes’ first mature New York City facades and scenes of the late 1960s to panoramic views of Manhattan and numerous other cities and natural sites.

     The exhibition offers new perspectives onto Estes as a painter both of the urban and natural worlds, balancing his interest in the dense fabric of New York and other large cities with his close attention to the coast of Maine and the woods of Mount Desert Island, where he has spent part of each year since the late 1970s.

     Most recently, Estes imbued images of New York City at night with sunlit luminosity. Select examples of Estes’ rare portraits will also be included in the exhibition.

     This five-decade survey of his paintings reveals an artistic vision that is both deeply rooted in European and American art history, and consistently engaged with fundamental and contemporary questions of representation, form, and surface.

 

 “Antarctica”, oil on canvas, 38 x 66 inches, 2007,  by Richard Estes. Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by Dwight Primiano. © Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.
“Antarctica”, oil on canvas, 38 x 66 inches, 2007, by Richard Estes. Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by Dwight Primiano. © Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.

MORE DETAILS: Call 207.775.6148 or www.portlandmuseum.org.