JANUARY 24 - APRIL 21, 2013 RESOURCE GUIDE The exhibition is produced by International Arts.® Hubert DeLartigue (French, b.1963). OMG!, 2009. OKLAHOMA CITY MUSEUM OF ART Acrylic on canvas, 38 in. diameter (96.5 cm). Courtesy of Bernarducci.Meisel.Gallery © Courtesy International Arts® 415 Couch Drive | Oklahoma City, OK 73102 | (405) 236-3100 | okcmoa.com JANUARY 24 - APRIL 21, 2013 Photorealism—the first modern movement to assert reliance on photography as a crucial part of the artistic process—has been an influential force on the art scene since the late 1960s. Though the original Photorealists were initially denounced for using photography, their work eventually gained recognition, becoming part of a resurgent interest in both painting and realism that flourished in the 1970s and has continued into the post-millennium years. Photorealism Revisited explores the historical roots of this quintessentially American style and its evolution on the international stage. Robert Bechtle (American, b.1932) EXHIBITION DETAILS '68 Cadillac, 1970 Oil on canvas, 22 x 24 in. • Organized by International Arts ® Private Collection, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, • 63 works, including paintings and prints New York. © Courtesy International Arts® • 35 artists Considered one of the first Photorealist • Works created between 1970 and 2012 painters, Robert Bechtle combined familiar American icons with his own personal style, resulting in the BEFORE VIEWING poetic sensibility seen in ’68 Cadillac. Bechtle’s use of a subdued color • Review realism in the visual arts palette was inspired by the soft light of California’s Bay Area and highlights • How does photorealism compare and contrast to previous an American car parked outside of a tendencies towards realism in the visual arts? California stucco building. For Bechtle, • Define and discussillusionism in the visual arts automobiles represented a friendly, commonplace element of middle-class American life. RESOURCE GUIDE 1 Audrey Flack (American, b.1931) Marilyn: Golden Girl 1978, 1978 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 62 in. Private Collection, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York. © Courtesy International Arts® The only female artist associated with Photorealism in the mid 1960s, Audrey Flack began her career in the world of abstract expressionism and later decided to abandon abstraction for realism. Flack is known for her still- life paintings containing emotional, social, and political themes. Many of Flack’s photographs originated from documentary news and often contained public figures. InMarilyn: Golden Girl 1978, Flack chose Marilyn Monroe as her subject and combined identifiable symbols of her life to create a still-life painting of her fleeting beauty. Executed with an airbrush, Flack introduces bright colors while emphasizing detail in some parts of the canvas whereas other areas appear less refined. The term “Photorealism” was BEFORE VIEWING coined by gallery owner Louis K. Meisel in 1968 to describe a REVIEW THE FOLLOWING VOCABULARY • Objective (or Representational) art group of American artists who • Non-objective (or Non-Representational) art began favoring a new type of • Abstract Expressionism photographic realism in the 1960s. • Pop Art This aesthetic came about after the height of non-objective and abstract DEFINE Photorealism expressionist art of the mid-20th Characterized by the extraordinary detail and precision with which subjects were depectied, Photorealism (also known as super-realism century and the consumer-based and sometimes hyper-realism, which is largely considered a movement imagery associated with Pop art. based on high-resolution photography), was a style of painting (and Enticed by the creative possibilities sometimes sculpture), which emerged principally in the USA in the late of photography, Photorealists used 1960s. one or more photographs – taken from a variety of sources – as inspiration for their paintings. RESOURCE GUIDE 2 BEFORE VIEWING DEFINE CAMERA OBSCURA Meisel’s definition of Photorealism RESEARCH Mechanical and semi-mechanical image transfers included not only the necessity of (i.e. Grid method, projection) a camera to capture the image or scene, but also identified that the image from the photo must be WHILE VIEWING transferred to the work surface Identify the mediums of objects in the exhibition via mechanical or semi-mechanical (in the visual arts, it’s okay to say “mediums” instead of the means (i.e., through the use of a standard plural “media”) projector, grid method, or transfer paper), a technique that had been Identify a work that is made with used by artists for centuries. After the photo is transferred to the work • Watercolor surface, the artist then meticulously proceeds to recreate in pigment • Acrylic the details of the photograph. • Oil The evolution of technology has brought forth photorealistic works • CROMAX that exceed what was thought possible with paintings. With • Canvas the ever-changing technology of cameras and digital equipment, • Linen artists are now able to be far more precision-oriented in their • Aluminum processes. Peter Maier (American, b.1945) Chick, 2012 DuPont Cromax-AT on fabricated black aluminum panel, 60 x 80 in. Eileen S. Kaminsky. © Courtesy International Arts® Having worked at General Motors for 15 years, artist Peter Maier uses specialized materials – industrial automotive paint and aluminum panel – to create the extremely smooth surface of his painting, Chick. Maier applied experimental waterborne CROMAX- WBC automotive paint formulated exclusively for him by DuPont. He has developed a unique technique and layering process that combines industrial paint technology with traditional brushwork. RESOURCE GUIDE 3 WHILE VIEWING Many of the works in the exhibition depict representations of everyday Painterly practice environments. Subject matter Note the evidence or lack of evidence of brushstroke. Describe includes elements of urban and the differences in painterly and formal qualities between the suburban landscapes, including paintings in the exhibition. trucks, motorcycles, cars, and roadside eateries. Other themes AFTER VIEWING include portraiture and still-life paintings inspired by popular Three Dimensional relations culture. This diverse imagery The term photorealism has been used to describe Sculpture, as highlights the versatility of the well as paintings. Identify and research three-dimensional works Photorealist style and its continued that are considered to be photorealistic. presence in contemporary art. Ralph Goings (American, b.1928) Two Leaning, 2010 Oil on canvas, 6 x 6 in. Courtesy of O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY. © Courtesy Inter- national Arts® Early in his career in the 1960s, Ralph Goings relied on photographs from magazines as subject matter much like the Pop artists who drew inspiration from the mass media. Goings eventually began to take photographs himself and to paint scenes of everyday life in California. Subject matter included pickup trucks, diners, supermarkets, and fast food restaurants. In the 1980s, inspired by his paintings of diner interiors, Goings began creating still-life compositions of generic objects such as donuts and coffee. Goings’s artistic process begins by choosing an image he prefers, creating a detailed pencil drawing, and then enlarging the image as reference. Goings stated, “what intrigued me was that I found this visual interest in such mundane, everyday things – things we normally dismiss and don’t even consider as visual experiences.” RESOURCE GUIDE 4 Charles Bell (American, 1935-1995) Kandy Kane Rainbow, 1994 Oil on canvas, 40 x 60 in. Private Collection, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York. © Courtesy International Arts® Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Charles Bell created large-scale Photorealist still-life paintings in his New York loft studio on West Broadway. Bell often painted vintage toys, pinball machines, gumball machines, dolls, and action figures, capturing the pictorial majesty and wonder of these small objects on a grand scale. Bell became known for his toy paintings, particularly the Marble Series, which originated in the 1980s. The artist utilized photography and computers to create images from which to paint. These modern tools helped him achieve a glass-like surface of the marbles with color, texture, transparency, translucency, and focus. SUGGESTED READING BEFORE VIEWING • Discuss the characteristics of and differences between Consey, Kevin E., Naumer, Helmuth painting a setting and a photograph of the same setting. J. Real, Really Real, Super Real. Austin: University of Texas in association with The San Antonio WHILE VIEWING Museum Association, 1981. • Compare and contrast the depth of focus and sharpness amongst the paintings in the exhibtion. Bishop, Janet, et al. Robert Bechtle: a retrospective. London: Butler and Tanner, 2005. AFTER VIEWING • Research how advances in photographic technology could Kuspit, Donald. Don Eddy: The Art have affected the paintings in the exhibition. of Paradox. New York: Hudson Hill Press, 2002. Meisel, Louis K. Photorealism. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1980. Meisel, Louis K. Photorealism since 1980. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993. Meisel, Louis K. Photorealism at the Millenium. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002. RESOURCE GUIDE 5 LESSON PLAN Complete-the-Image Colored Pencil Drawings THIS LESSON... • is appropriate for grades K - 12. • will take approximately two 45-minute sessions. • introduces the process of working from a photograph, as well as shading, highlighting, value, and detail. MATERIALS The definition