Revisiting Landscapes Through Richard Estes' Realism

When Richard Estes was eight-years-old, his parents gifted him with an Eastman Kodak  Brownie camera. Since then, Estes, now 82, has been documenting his surroundings—from his first snapshots of his hometown of Sheffield, Illinois to the photographs taken in his mid-30s of New York City that inspired his first realist paintings in 1966.

Opening today at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Richard Estes' Realism presents in the U.S. for the first time since 1978 a complete overview of Estes' oeuvre, featuring 46 paintings from his 50-year career. In addition to his photorealist series depicting New York City's streets and storefronts, the retrospective explores the artist's urban landscapes of Paris, London, and Tokyo alongside his renderings of Antarctica's glaciers and Maine's parks and waters. From the glistening façade of a diner to a thicket in Acadia National Park, Estes approaches each of his subjects with a sharp and devoted precision that invites prolonged examination.

"American audiences are long overdue for a careful reassessment of Richard Estes' work," said Betsy Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. "His paintings are rewardingly inexhaustible, and each viewing yields new discoveries."

Estes often played with reflections and reflective surfaces in his work, creating images with dense and complex compositions. His paintings of New York City include mirror-like surfaces of cars, endless rows of glass gleaming from apartment buildings, and large display windows filled with candy or curio. The exhibition also includes examples of Estes' more recently illustrated scenes of New York City that offer deep, dismal vistas through the windows of subway cars or more hectic views of urban life on the streets and in stores.

While Estes is known primarily for his cityscapes, a visit to Maine in the summer of 1969 led to a constant engagement with nature, especially with the shimmering surface of water. In Europe, he photographed and painted the canals of Venice, the Seine, and the Thames, shifting his focus away from the architecture of the cities. Richard Estes' Realism marks the first time his panoramic landscape paintings and water scenes are on display to the public.

The exhibit also features a sampling of Estes' rarer portraits and self-portraits. "Double Self-Portrait" (1976), the first time the artist featured himself—and a frontally facing person—in his realist paintings, shows Estes reflected in the glass of an empty diner, his camera and tripod clearly visible. Overlaying the interior of the eatery is a faint view of the naked trees and pastel-colored cars behind him, creating yet another intricate perspective. The image is the only clear presentation of himself in his work until another self-portrait in 2013.

Born in 1932 in Sheffield, Illinois, Richard Estes moved to Chicago in 1952 to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He then moved to New York City in 1958, where he still resides. Before foraging into urban photorealism, he worked in illustration and graphic design for advertising firms and publications and focused largely on figurative paintings. Today, his canon of realist paintings provide a detailed and alluring archive of settings around the world from the late 1960s onward.

Jointly organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine, Richard Estes' Realism is on view through Feb. 8, 2016; previously shown at the Portland Museum of Art, its run at the Smithsonian American Art Museum marks its final stop of the tour.