by Dawn Levesque
Photorealism was a major
American art movement of the 1970s. It consisted of painters who used
photography as their subject matter and sculptors who recreated the human body
with mastery. The significant trend of the period has frequently been
characterized as an offshoot of the 1960s Pop Art movement and a reaction to
the Minimalist movement, although with a “grittier honesty,” using photography
to encapsulate “the real.”
In a New York Times article,
Vivien Raynor stated that while Photorealism was an offshoot of Pop Art, it
“had the affectlessness of Minimalism and, at the same time, capitalized on the
public’s fondness for exact replication.”
The Nassau County Museum of Art
stages a significant group presentation, Still Life: 1970s Photorealism until
November 9, 2014. Organized by Yale University Art Gallery, the exhibit will
highlight leading artists such as Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, Duane Hanson,
Ralph Goings, Idelle Weber among others.
Photorealist paintings
portrayed the postwar American landscape, which included billboards, neon
signs, cafes, cars and highways as seen in Robert Blechtle’s ‘64 Valiant and
Davis Cone’s Wilkes. It illustrated Vietnam War cynicism and confronted the
difficulties of working-class during the 1970s-recession era. American film
directors echoed the same gritty verity. Independent film director, John
Cassavetes spurred a documentary style known as “truth cinema” or “cinéma
vérité” and American documentary director, Barbara Kopple, who was an advocate
of worker’s rights, captured anti-war sentiments and steelworkers.
Albeit its notoriety and
international exposure, the movement was principally short-lived and pushed
aside in the contemporary realm of art history. Through the decades, artists
have attempted to reestablish the trend. The current Nassau exhibit surveys how
Photorealism has fundamentally endured to remain influential through different
art interpretations. Today, various painters still seek the “conversation
between photography and painting” and paint directly from photographs.
Photorealists typically worked
under two-painting genres – still life and portraiture. For example, the
American artist-sculptress, Audrey Flack, one of the pioneers of the 1970s
movement, based her meticulously rendered still-life paintings on color
photographs that she had personally taken. Utilizing the photograph as a
working study and part of her process, Flack worked in saturated colors, glossy
and reflective surfaces.
Another example is American
artist, Idelle Weber, who was first associated with Pop Art and then
Photorealism. In her 1974 work, Gutter I, Weber focuses on litter found in the
street gutter. She devotes her attention to “light and color” with such
accuracy that it “almost evokes the sacred,” according to the Boston Globe.
While American Photorealist
sculptors like John De Andrea and Duane Hanson typically cast from life in
fiberglass and polyester resin. Their works were later painted in oils combined
with mixed media to appear lifelike. Photorealist sculptural works, as seen in
Hanson’s 1973 Man with Beer in Chair
evoked an awareness of existence, whether it was compassion or disgust, was up
to the viewer.
The Nassau exhibit presents a
snapshot of an almost fleeting period in art history. It poses the question as
to Photorealism’s true standing in 20th-century art. The exhibit suggests that
the Photorealist movement depicted life in the 1970s with a “grittier honesty”
than was commonly accepted. These works have garnered renewed importance and
the artistic style will continue to evolve in 21st century art history.