Art by Richard Estes

In Love with New York: The Art of Richard Estes

Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American painter who is best known for his photorealistic paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with painters such as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson. This website is a tribute to Richard Estes by NOVA68.com

Richard Estes

Food City Supermarket New York City 1960s

Oil on Masonite

1967

 

 Richard Estes

Bus with Reflections of the Flatiron Building New York City 1967

Oil on Masonite

1967

Richard Estes

The Candy Store New York City 1960s

Oil on Canvas

1968

Richard Estes

42nd Street Times Square New York City

Oil on Masonite

1968

Richard Estes

Grand Luncheonette New York City 1960s

Oil on Canvas

1969

Richard Estes

Eat'n Time New York City 1960s

Oil on Masonite

1969

Richard Estes

New York City Subway 1960s

Oil on Canvas

1969

 Richard Estes

New York City Parking Lot

Oil on Masonite

1969

Richard Estes

Cafetaria at Madison Square Garden

Lithograph

1970

Richard Estes

Nedick's New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1970

Richard Estes

Car Reflections New York City 1970s

Oil and Acrylic on Masonite

1970

Richard Estes

Times Square New York City

Oil on Masonite

1970s

Richard Estes

Times Square New York City

Oil on Masonite

1970s

Richard Estes

Times Square New York City

Oil on Masonite

1970s

Richard Estes

Helene's Florist New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1971

 Richard Estes

People's Flowers New York City

Oil on Canvas

1971

Richard Estes

Diner New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1971

 Richard Estes

"560"

Gouache and Pencil on Board

1972

Richard Estes

Seagram Building New York

Gouache on Board

1972

Richard Estes

Shoe Outlet New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1973

Richard Estes

Supreme Hardware

Oil on Canvas

1974

Richard Estes

Thom McAn Clothing Store New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1974

Richard Estes

Qualicraft Shoes New York City 1970s

Gouache and Acrylic on Board

1974

Richard Estes

Columbus Avenue at 90th Street New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1974

Richard Estes

Bus Reflections Ansonia near Embassy Hotel New York 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1974

Richard Estes

Central Savings New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1975

Richard Estes

Café Express Paris France

Oil on Canvas

1975

Richard Estes

Hamburger Shop New York City 1970s

Oil on Canvas

1976

Richard Estes

Harvey's Coffee Shop

Oil on Board

1976

Richard Estes

Billiards

Gouache on Board

1976

 Richard Estes

Telephone Boots New York

Oil on Masonite

1968

 Richard Estes

Venezia Murano, screenprint in colors on Fabriano Cottone paper from the edition of 100, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with the blindstamp of the printer, Domberger Screenprints, Germany

1979

 Richard Estes

4 1/2% Interest, screenprint in colors on Fabriano Cottone paper from the edition of 100, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, with the blindstamp of the printer, Domberger Screenprints, Germany

1979

Richard Estes

Jone's Diner

Oil on Canvas

1979

 Richard Estes

Big Diamonds

Oil on Canvas

1979

 Richard Estes

The Ginger Man Restaurant

Oil on Canvas

1979

Richard Estes

Waverly Place

Oil on Canvas

1980

Richard Estes

Untitled, San Francisco

Oil on Board

1980s

Richard Estes

Oenophilia

Oil on Canvas

1983

Richard Estes

Times Square at 3:53pm Winter

Oil on Canvas

1985

Richard Estes

Central Park Looking North from Belvedere Castle

Oil on Canvas

1987

Richard Estes

Williamsburg Bridge Subway

Oil on Canvas

1987

Richard Estes

The Plaza at Central Park

Oil on Canvas

1991

Richard Estes

Brooklyn Bridge

Oil on Canvas

1993

Richard Estes

View from Williamsburg Bridge II

Oil on Canvas

1995

Richard Estes

Market at Broadway and 75th Street

Oil on Canvas

2000

Richard Estes

Lunch Specials

Oil on Canvas

2001

Richard Estes

Broad Street

Oil on Canvas

2003

Richard Estes

Afternoon Tea in the Village

Oil on Canvas

2003

Richard Estes

Times Square

Oil on Canvas

2004

Richard Estes

tkts Line

Oil on Canvas

2005

Richard Estes

43rd and Broadway

Oil on Canvas

2005

 Richard Estes

Tour Bus at the World Trade Center

Oil on Canvas

2005

 Richard Estes

Times Square New York

Oil on Canvas

2005

Photo-Realist Art by Richard Estes

Richard Estes was born on May 14th 1932 in Kewanee Illinois. In 1959, Richard Estes moved to New York City after a sting in advertising doing paste-ups, layouts and illustrations. He currently resides in both New York City and Maine (his latest artwork depicts the coast line of Maine).

Richard Estes’s paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate inner city and geometric landscapes. Richard Estes is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with such painters as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson. Author Graham Thompson wrote, "One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is also called super-realism or hyper-realism and painters like Richard Estes, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack, and Chuck Close often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs."

Richard Estes has always stayed true to the photographs: when his paintings included stickers, signs, and window displays, they were always depicted backwards, because of the reflection of the original photograph. His works rarely included litter or snow around the buildings, because he believed these details would detract attention away from the buildings themselves. The settings were always in the daytime, never the nighttime, suggesting "vacant and quiet Sunday mornings." Richard Estes' works strive to create a three-dimensional feel on a two-dimensional canvas. His work has been considered using a variety of terms, ranging from super-realism, sharp-focus realism, neo-realism, photo-realism, to radical realism. The most frequented term is super-realism. Most of Richard Richard's paintings from the early 1960s are of city dwellers engaged in everyday activities. Beginning around 1967, he began to paint storefronts and buildings with glass windows and, more importantly, the reflected images shown on these windows. The paintings were based on color photographs he would take, which trapped the evanescent nature of the reflections, which would change with the lighting and the time of day. Richard Estes' paintings were based on several photographs of the subject. He avoided using famous New York landmarks. His paintings provided fine detail that were invisible to the naked eye, and gave "depth and intensity of vision that only artistic transformation can achieve." While some amount of alteration was done for the sake of aesthetic composition, it was important to Richard Estes that the central and the main reflected objects be recognizable, but also that the evanescent quality of the reflections be retained. He had his one-man show in 1968, at the Allan Stone Gallery. His works have also been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1971, Richard Estes was granted a National Council for the Arts fellowship. We especially love his work from the 1960s and 1970s which depicts New York City before it was cleaned up and sanitized.

Richard Estes, who is currently 80 years old, continues to create new works of art. His latest works include paintings from his travels to Antartica, Galapagos, New Zealand and Tahiti.

Richard Estes: Paintings and Prints available from Amazon