Richard Estes

Richard Estes (b. 1932) is one of the foremost Photo Realist painters who was given his first solo exhibition at the Allan Stone Gallery in 1968. Estes was greatly influenced by the realist paintings of Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, and Thomas Eakins when he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Estes moved to New York City in 1959 and worked as a graphic designer at magazines and advertising agencies, where he painted in his free time. Many of Estes’ works from the 1960’s feature city life and people engaged in every day activities. He then focused on painting storefronts, glass windows, and reflected images on these windows. Estes used photographs to aid in his super realistic paintings, capturing different types of natural and artificial light. Although he paints the New York City landscape and people, he avoids including famous landmarks, and most of his works feature a particular kind of isolation or dream-like quality, like Hopper. He is the recipient of a National Council for the Arts fellowship and is a member of the National Academy of Design. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of art, the Whitney Museum of American art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others. He lives in New York and Maine.