The contemporary realism movement is a worldwide style of painting which came into existence c. 1960s and early 1970s. Featuring a straightforward approach to representation practiced by artists such as
Philip Pearlstein
Philip Martin Pearlstein (May 24, 1924 – December 17, 2022) was an American painter best known for Modernist Realist nudes. Cited by critics as the preeminent figure painter of the 1960s to 2000s, he led a revival in realist art.
Biography ...
,
Alex Katz
Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints.
Early life and career
Alex Katz was born July 24, 1927, to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, as the son of an émigré who ha ...
, Jack Beal and Neil Welliver. The movement refers to figurative art works created in a natural yet highly objective style. Today the term Contemporary Realism encompasses all post-1970 sculptors and painters whose discipline is representational art, where the object is to portray the "real" and not the "ideal".
In
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
the realist movement found a strong following on the east coat in
the Maritimes
The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of C ...
. The group of artists that became known as Maritime Realists developed at Mount Allison University which established the first degree granting Fine Arts program in the country.
Alex Colville
David Alexander Colville, LL. D. (24 August 1920 – 16 July 2013) was a painter and printmaker who continues to achieve both popular and critical success.
Early life and war artist
Born in 1920 in Toronto, Ontario, Colville moved with his ...
who taught in the Fine Arts program at Mount Allison is considered the leading figure in this movement, along with a number of his students including
Christopher Pratt
John Christopher Pratt (December 9, 1935 – June 5, 2022) was a Canadian painter and printmaker.Mary Pratt, Tom Forrestall, DP Brown and Nancy Stevens. Some Contemporary Realists, like Beal and
Rackstraw Downes
Rackstraw Downes (born 1939) is a British-born realist painter and author. His oil paintings are notable for their meticulous detail accumulated during months of plein-air sessions, depictions of industry and the environment, and elongated compo ...
, began as trained abstract painters. (Abstract Expressionism had been well-established by c. 1960.) Rural artist enclaves (e.g., The Hamptons; areas of Maine) encouraged naturalistic imagery for some. Others shared approaches and methods of Photorealism. Some art schools, notably the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appa ...
, have continued to nurture the legacy of 19th-century American Realist painting; Yale has seen a loose, inter-generational network of representational painters over the past few decades. The
New York Academy of Art
The New York Academy of Art is a private art school in Tribeca, New York City. The academy offers a Master of Fine Arts degree with a focus on technical training and critical discourse as well as a Post-baccalaureate Certificate of Fine Art. The ...
continues to further contemporary figurative art. A number of women artists have been prominently associated with stylistic variants of contemporary realism, including (not limited to)
Jane Freilicher
Jane Freilicher (November 19, 1924 – December 9, 2014) was an American representational painter of urban and country scenes from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a member of the informal New York School beginni ...
Janet Fish
Janet Fish (born May 18, 1938) is a contemporary American realist artist. Through oil painting, lithography, and screenprinting, she explores the interaction of light with everyday objects in the still life genre. Many of her paintings include ...
Yvonne Jacquette
Yvonne Jacquette (born 1934) is an American painter and printmaker known in particular for her depictions of aerial landscapes, especially her low-altitude and oblique aerial views of cities or towns, often painted using a distinctive, poin ...
, and Martha Mayer Erlebacher. Another woman contemporary realist is Ann Mikolowski, whose art explores representational technique in the context of photography, abstraction, and superrealism.
References
''Real, Really Real, Super Real: Directions in Contemporary American Realism'' (San Antonio Museum Association, 1981; exhibition catalogue).
Mark Strand, Robert Hughes, Timothy-Greenfield Sanders, ''Art of the Real: Nine American Figurative Painters'' (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1983).
Hilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist.
Biography
Early life
Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a bachelor's degree in English; ...