Richard Estes

(American, born 1932)

Richard Estes is an American artist known for his Photorealist paintings of cityscapes—particularly the glittering stainless steel surfaces of telephones booths and storefronts. Like Chuck Close, Audrey Flack, and Vija Celmins, Estes renders images sourced from photographs with precise and nearly invisible brushstrokes. “I worked in advertising,” the artist explained of his technique. “That's where I started using photographs to make illustrations. I saw all the other people were doing it—they didn't put a model in front of them and make a careful drawing.” Born on May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, IL, Estes graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1956, before moving to New York where he began his career as a commercial artist. In 1968, Allan Stone Gallery gave Estes his first solo exhibition, after which he was able to focus solely on his own work. More recently, Estes has utilized digital software to manipulate and combine multiple photographs for his source material. He currently lives and works between New York, NY and Maine. The artist’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, among others.