Artwork of the 80's
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Artists & Works
Jack Mendenhall
American (b. 1937)
ELEPHANT PARADE (1972)
oil on canvas
84.5” x 70.5”

STYLE: PHOTOREALISM

  

Jack Mendenhall studied at the California School of Arts and Crafts and became associated with a group of San Francisco artists who openly painted meticulous renditions of photographs, even reproducing the blurred focus of the camera lens when it occurred. Mendenhall currently is on the faculty of the California College of the Arts and continues in the photorealist tradition, although his subject matter has expanded from interiors to include tropical exteriors and other scenes.

Elephant Parade reflects Mendenhall’s expressed desire to create art from an ignored subject, the contemporary American interior. Through consistently choosing trendy, upscale environments, Mendenhall is focusing on contemporary society and its lifestyles, though not necessarily making a sociopolitical comment. Rather, he frames the issue for the viewer, forcing us to reflect on this enlarged and thus exaggerated snapshot of American life.

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

Lindey, Christine, Superrealist Paintings and Sculpture, William Morrow, New York, 1980
"The sense of life created by Gertsch is notable only for its absence in the unnaturally silent, ultra-clean interiors depicted by Jack Mendenhall...Since 1971 this Californian painter has portrayed the trite world of the contemporary nouveau-riche, and although he works from pre-existing photographs found in interior design magazines, like Baeder he uses photorealism as a means of establishing the credibility of unlikely subject matter. We realize with a shock that such interiors, so unrelated to contemporary design trends, actually do exist."

Jack Mendenhall, artist’s statement, c. 1985
“The contemporary interior and its residents have supplied me with enormously rich material for many years. This is certainly not the realism of everyday living, but a reflection of the richness to which society aspires...After careful cropping and dramatic changes in scale, generally six to seven feet, the photographs are transformed via the language of realism into an expression of modern formalist painting.’”