TitleSubway
Artist
Richard Estes
(American, b. 1936)
Date1981
MediumScreenprint on white wove paper
DimensionsSheet size: 19 11/16 × 27 9/16 in.
Image size: 14 × 20 in.
Mat size: 26 × 32 in.
SignedSigned in graphite at LR: "Richard Estes".
MarkingsBlindstamp at BLC: DOMBERGER / SCREENPRINTING.
SubmissionANA diploma presentation, January 10, 1983
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1983.5
Label TextRichard Estes studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1956. He worked in advertising and publishing for a decade before giving full time and attention to painting. In the late 1960s Estes emerged, along with a number of other like-minded artists who were working in a highly realistic style that in many ways was a response to the minimalist and other abstract styles that had become pervasive. As a recognized leader in the contemporary movement that became known as Photorealism, his work has been seen with ever-increasing frequency in exhibitions presented by museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Estes often employs numerous photographs in composing his intensely "real" paintings and silk screen prints of excerpts of urban scenery. His first foray into printmaking was with a group of eight silkscreen prints comprising an urban landscape series. "Subway," from that series, conveys the artist's longtime interest in the formal elements of urban imagery--the interaction of areas of flat color, linear elements, and reflections. He used at least fifty hues and tones, an unusually large number for a silkscreen print, and one requiring as many passes through the press. In the artist's own words: "The abstract quality of reality is far more exciting than most of the abstract painting that I see."
