Details

Title

Supreme Hardware

Artist/Maker

Richard Estes (American, born 1932)

Date

1974

Medium

Oil and acrylic on canvas

Dimensions

40 x 66 1/4 inches

Credit

Gift of Virginia Carroll Crawford

Accession #

1978.119

On View

Currently not on view

Unlike many photorealist painters, Richard Estes uses neither a grid system nor a projector to transfer photographic images to canvas. Rather, he refers to multiple photographs of his subject as source materials. He sketches the entire scene with acrylic paint and builds upon it with oil paint, adding and sharpening details and polishing reflective surfaces. As in Supreme Hardware, the absence of narrative in Estes’s work challenges the viewer to confront the visual cacophony of urban life. His technique de-emphasizes the artist’s individual touch and stresses the impersonal and anonymous character of the big city.

Image Copyright

© Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York

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