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Art by Richard Estes

In Love with New York: The Art of Richard Estes

Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American painter who is best known for his photorealistic paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with painters such as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson. This website is a tribute to Richard Estes by NOVA68.com

Richard Estes
Food City Supermarket New York City 1960s
Oil on Masonite
1967

 
 Richard Estes
Bus with Reflections of the Flatiron Building New York City 1967
Oil on Masonite
1967

Richard Estes
The Candy Store New York City 1960s
Oil on Canvas
1968

Richard Estes
42nd Street Times Square New York City
Oil on Masonite
1968

Richard Estes
Grand Luncheonette New York City 1960s
Oil on Canvas
1969

Richard Estes
Eat'n Time New York City 1960s
Oil on Masonite
1969

Richard Estes
New York City Subway 1960s
Oil on Canvas
1969

 Richard Estes
New York City Parking Lot
Oil on Masonite
1969

Richard Estes
Cafetaria at Madison Square Garden
Lithograph
1970

Richard Estes
Nedick's New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1970

Richard Estes
Car Reflections New York City 1970s
Oil and Acrylic on Masonite
1970

Richard Estes
Times Square New York City
Oil on Masonite
1970s

Richard Estes
Times Square New York City
Oil on Masonite
1970s

Richard Estes
Times Square New York City
Oil on Masonite
1970s

Richard Estes
Helene's Florist New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1971

 Richard Estes
People's Flowers New York City
Oil on Canvas
1971

Richard Estes
Diner New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1971

 Richard Estes
"560"
Gouache and Pencil on Board
1972

Richard Estes
Seagram Building New York
Gouache on Board
1972

Richard Estes
Shoe Outlet New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1973

Richard Estes
Supreme Hardware
Oil on Canvas
1974


Richard Estes
Thom McAn Clothing Store New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1974

Richard Estes
Qualicraft Shoes New York City 1970s
Gouache and Acrylic on Board
1974

Richard Estes
Columbus Avenue at 90th Street New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1974

Richard Estes
Bus Reflections Ansonia near Embassy Hotel New York 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1974

Richard Estes
Central Savings New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1975

Richard Estes
Café Express Paris France
Oil on Canvas
1975

Richard Estes
Hamburger Shop New York City 1970s
Oil on Canvas
1976

Richard Estes
Harvey's Coffee Shop
Oil on Board
1976

Richard Estes
Billiards
Gouache on Board
1976

 Richard Estes
Telephone Boots New York
Oil on Masonite
1968

 Richard Estes
Venezia Murano, screenprint in colors on Fabriano Cottone paper from the edition of 100, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with the blindstamp of the printer, Domberger Screenprints, Germany
1979

 Richard Estes
4 1/2% Interest, screenprint in colors on Fabriano Cottone paper from the edition of 100, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with the blindstamp of the printer, Domberger Screenprints, Germany
1979

Richard Estes
Jone's Diner
Oil on Canvas
1979

 Richard Estes
Big Diamonds
Oil on Canvas
1979

 Richard Estes
The Ginger Man Restaurant
Oil on Canvas
1979

Richard Estes
Waverly Place
Oil on Canvas
1980

Richard Estes
Untitled, San Francisco
Oil on Board
1980s

Richard Estes
Oenophilia
Oil on Canvas
1983

Richard Estes
Times Square at 3:53pm Winter
Oil on Canvas
1985

Richard Estes
Central Park Looking North from Belvedere Castle
Oil on Canvas
1987

Richard Estes
Williamsburg Bridge Subway
Oil on Canvas
1987

Richard Estes
The Plaza at Central Park
Oil on Canvas
1991

Richard Estes
Brooklyn Bridge
Oil on Canvas
1993

Richard Estes
View from Williamsburg Bridge II
Oil on Canvas
1995

Richard Estes
Market at Broadway and 75th Street
Oil on Canvas
2000

Richard Estes
Lunch Specials
Oil on Canvas
2001

Richard Estes
Broad Street
Oil on Canvas
2003

Richard Estes
Afternoon Tea in the Village
Oil on Canvas
2003

Richard Estes
Times Square
Oil on Canvas
2004

Richard Estes
tkts Line
Oil on Canvas
2005

Richard Estes
43rd and Broadway
Oil on Canvas
2005

 Richard Estes
Tour Bus at the World Trade Center
Oil on Canvas
2005

 Richard Estes
Times Square New York
Oil on Canvas
2005

Photo-Realist Art by Richard Estes

Richard Estes was born on May 14th 1932 in Kewanee Illinois. In 1959, Richard Estes moved to New York City after a sting in advertising doing paste-ups, layouts and illustrations. He currently resides in both New York City and Maine (his latest artwork depicts the coast line of Maine).

Richard Estes’s paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate inner city and geometric landscapes. Richard Estes is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with such painters as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson. Author Graham Thompson wrote, "One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is also called super-realism or hyper-realism and painters like Richard Estes, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack, and Chuck Close often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs."

Richard Estes has always stayed true to the photographs: when his paintings included stickers, signs, and window displays, they were always depicted backwards, because of the reflection of the original photograph. His works rarely included litter or snow around the buildings, because he believed these details would detract attention away from the buildings themselves. The settings were always in the daytime, never the nighttime, suggesting "vacant and quiet Sunday mornings." Richard Estes' works strive to create a three-dimensional feel on a two-dimensional canvas. His work has been considered using a variety of terms, ranging from super-realism, sharp-focus realism, neo-realism, photo-realism, to radical realism. The most frequented term is super-realism. Most of Richard Richard's paintings from the early 1960s are of city dwellers engaged in everyday activities. Beginning around 1967, he began to paint storefronts and buildings with glass windows and, more importantly, the reflected images shown on these windows. The paintings were based on color photographs he would take, which trapped the evanescent nature of the reflections, which would change with the lighting and the time of day. Richard Estes' paintings were based on several photographs of the subject. He avoided using famous New York landmarks. His paintings provided fine detail that were invisible to the naked eye, and gave "depth and intensity of vision that only artistic transformation can achieve." While some amount of alteration was done for the sake of aesthetic composition, it was important to Richard Estes that the central and the main reflected objects be recognizable, but also that the evanescent quality of the reflections be retained. He had his one-man show in 1968, at the Allan Stone Gallery. His works have also been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1971, Richard Estes was granted a National Council for the Arts fellowship. We especially love his work from the 1960s and 1970s which depicts New York City before it was cleaned up and sanitized.

Richard Estes, who is currently 80 years old, continues to create new works of art. His latest works include paintings from his travels to Antartica, Galapagos, New Zealand and Tahiti.