Richard Estes' Realism

This is an excellent catalog of a retrospective exhibition organized by the Portland Art Museum on American photorealist painter Estes (b. 1932). The extensive biographical and art-historical essay by Sims (board president, Independent Curators International) is a model of its kind, both in detail, content, and fluid exposition while May's (curator of contemporary and modern art, Portland Museum of Art, ME) essay on photography and photorealist painting is succinct, thoughtful, and pellucid. The production values of the 50 large-scale plates are high, as befits such exacting painting. The chronology of Estes's life and career, the exhibition history, and the bibliography are of similar high standard. Never really lacking critical notice but always somewhat of a loner even at the height of the photorealism movement, Estes here is confirmed as a major American painter. The survey includes not just the classic New York urban views of the 1970s and 1980s but also portraiture and many landscapes and scenes from the artist's longtime residence in Maine.