Photorealist Founders

Chuck Close

Born in 1940

Both a painter and photographer Chuck Close gained fame through his photorealist artwork, credited along with Richard Estes and Ralph Goings as one of the founders of the movement. An American artist born in Washington State, Close lost his father at a young age but found artistic inspiration in the splatter paint works of Jackson Pollock.

Earning his bachelors degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, winning a prestigious scholarship at the Yale Summer School of Music and Art soon after. Followed by his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) also pursued at Yale University in New Haven 1964. Upon graduating, Close was granted a scholarship through the Fulbright organization to study in Austria at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 1967 Close returned to New York City establishing himself in the heart of Soho where his success only escalated.

Close has held a steady interest in portraiture, first recognized for his large scale works. Experimenting with a variety of mediums of both conventional and unconventional origin such as: graphite, ink, pastel, watercolor, conté, finger painting, printmaking, stamping pads, as well as etching, woodcuts, linocuts, silkscreens and paper collage. His early work with airbrushing styles is known to have inspired the production of ink jet printers.

In 1999 Close explained to the Independent UK newspaper: “It came out of this Japanese guy who saw an exhibition of mine in LA in 1970 or `71,” … “I was spraying just three colours, different amounts and intensities of red over yellow over blue. He went back and invented ink jet printing.”

This being one of Close’s many contributions to the world of contemporary art and beyond!

Richard Estes

Born in 1932

Another American painter recognized as a founder of the international photorealist movement, Richard Estes is known for his crisp urban scenes. Interested in architecture and inanimate settings rather than portraiture and people. Estes often involves reflective illusionary techniques in his work, known for its’ meticulous detail depicted to perfection.

Estes grew up in Chicago where he remained into college years to study at The School of Art Institute of Chicago. There he learned of Institute graduates such as Edgar Degas and Thomas Eakins, closely studying their work and greatly inspired by it. These realist influences played a strong role in Estes’s later career and stylistic development.

Upon completing his Fine Arts degree in 1956 Estes immediately moved to New York City where many of his most famous paintings are depicted. Living between Spain and New York, he worked for a variety of magazines and advertising agencies as a successful graphic designer. Ten years later in 1966 he felt able to quit this “day job” now financially stable and became a full time artist.

His paintings always maintained close relations with the photographs they originated from, any ads or signs that are reflected backwards in a picture are uniformly portrayed in his painterly versions. People rarely appear in his ordinary Manhattan scenes, focused on the buildings and architecture rather than litter or weather conditions surrounding them.

Estes’ gained a reputation as somewhat “obsessive” for his painstaking detail and inclusion of every intricate aspect of an image. His work often provides more information than the eye can take on when glancing or scanning a scene first hand. His unique skill and style has shaped the movement of photorealism, inspiring and influencing the greater world of contemporary art.

Ralph Goings

Born in 1928

Unlike Estes and Close, Ralph Goings is based on the West Coast though still an American painter and member of the core photorealist group. His highly detailed style emulates that of Richard Estes, though Goings came first. He is known for his deliberated depictions of franchised hamburger stands and pick up trucks as well as scenic California suburban-scapes reproduced with utmost precision. The old model vehicles serve as sincere examples of the nostalgic feeling so strongly captured by photorealist work.

Goings was born in Corning, California  earning his first degree at California College of Arts in Oakland graduated with a BFA in 1953. He later turned his focus to realist style paintings when working on an MFA at California State University in Sacramento.

Like the pop artists who preceded him, Goings relied on magazine images and mass media commercials as the photographic elements behind his work. Only later in his career with the development of photography did he begin shooting his own pictures of the pickup trucks and the typical California dream visuals.

Once he had his own camera, Goings was able to develop a proper method of hyperrealist painting production. He began by shooting “a couple hundred” slides of his chosen subject, picking the one liked best and then projecting onto canvas. Sketching out the projection he would then strategically paint within the lines starting with the lightest inner areas working outward to a dark background. Paintings would typically take any number of months to reach completion, slaving over every detail, shadow and pattern.

John Baeder

Born in 1938

Associated with the other founders though not always considered on himself, John Baeder has too contributed to the developing movement of photorealism. Best known for his detailed depictions of American roadside diners and eateries, like the artists above he too is also an American painter of similar era.

Born in South Bend, Indiana but raised in Atlanta, Georgia, his early years likely shaped this interest in small town scenery frequently traveling between Atlanta and Alabama during his University experience in the 1950s. Studying at Auburn University his frequent highway travels drew attention to the roadside diners he would constantly pass.

Upon graduating Auburn in 1960 Baeder began work in Atlanta at an advertising agency branch based in New York. Granted the position of art director it was not long before he left for New York himself pursuing a successful career in advertising. Finding inspiration at the Museum of Modern Art nearby his office. There Baeder enjoyed visiting the photography department studying the work of Walker Evans and Berenice Abbott.

In 1972 Baeder left the world of advertising to pursue a full time career as an artist, beginning to exhibit work at the OK Haris Gallery NY. Continuing to collect postcards and photographs of roadside diners he still enjoys portraying this subject matter. Featured in over thirty solo exhibitions across the United States, John Baeder has seen continued success and recognition for his photorealist work.