Richard Estes

Born in 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois, Richard Estes is considered one of the founders of photorealism, a movement that emerged in the 1960s as a reaction to abstraction. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he moved to New York and began painting urban scenes from his own photographs. His work focuses on reflections, shop windows, buses and empty streets, with impressive technical virtuosity. In contrast to the spontaneity of street photography, his paintings are the fruit of methodical, thoughtful construction. Exhibited in major museums, he is recognized as a cold but fascinating observer of modernity.