Artwork of the 80's
Side nav buttons CAM HomeARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Timeline:ARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Styles & Movements:ARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Artists & Works:ARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Introduction:

Artists & Works
Rackstraw Downes
American, born British (b. 1939)
THE SEARSPORT DOCKS WITH THE UNLOADING OF THE S.S. INGER (1980)
oil on canvas
16" X 54.75"
STYLE: photorealism

It may seem strange that after all the innovations of the 20th century—Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism—suddenly painters would go back to painting the details of the world exactly as they might appear in a photograph. Yet this is what happened in the 70s and 80s. As one of these "New Realists," Downes gives us a faithful representation of an observed scene. Through its precision we can see how earlier realisms from centuries before (including many 19th century landscapes in this museum) actually contain numerous manipulative and deceptive strategies. By obsessive attention to the objective details of the real world, Downes may actually be burlesquing reality and asking the viewer to question his painted version of it. What does it mean to paint something exactly as it is? Is this ever possible? Some admirers of Downes think his paintings follow in an abstract tradition because they investigate the pragmatic and analytical roots of experience, rather than simply celebrate it. Critics also point out that Downes is careful to document man's role in transforming his environment.

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

John Yau, Hirschl-Adler catalogue, 2/84
"Rackstraw Downes' unemphatic views of Manhattan and Maine convey the distinct conviction that all movements and places are equally important...The precisely placed daubs and strokes of paint spring from a desire, at once emotional and philosophical, to have the work accurately record a vast range of particulars...his approach to Realism is among the freshest, most complex being undertaken today...As in his other drawings and paintings, the spatial distortions arise out of an attempt to get at the how of a familiar experience...The fullest culmination of Downes investigation can be found in the paintings, many of which take him years to finish...This propensity for investigation places Downes squarely in a tradition that includes Leonardo, Parmigianino, Van Eyck...It makes his paintings as firmly rooted in the Modernist tradition as any abstract action...This Modernism is reinforced by Downes' subject matter. Many of his urban scenes depict buildings under construction or demolition The rural scenes are largely of places where man's industry and nature exist side by side. Our presence, what we have made of the world around us, is always being addressed...His pragmatic intellect is analytical as well as intuitive. The fact that he has not dramatized decisions such as this should convince us of the maturity of his vision. He is more than a formidable presence. He explores the world on our behalf."

Robert Storr, Art in America, 10/84
"...Rackstraw Downes is fascinated by the local and the mundane; his art also couples close observation with respect for what he sees...With such a humble and discriminating attention to the social and physical functions of the land, Downes pursues his task more in the manner of the geographer than that of the modern painter. By stepping away from the reductive or interpretive strategies of painting since Impressionism toward a documentary conception of landscape art, Downes has helped to revive a long undernourished branch of realism. At the same time, by fusing an all-encompassing curiosity with an extreme fidelity to just those facts which demonstrate the variousness of contemporary reality, he has mitigated the homogenizing tendencies of a style based on reportage...For Downes, the elusive moment of postmodernism represents the opportunity to pick up where Constable and the others left off—on the path toward a truly exhaustive art that places observed complexity ahead of invented or conceptual difficulty, and the 'presentness' of experience of real places in real time ahead of an interest in narrowly contemporary formal concerns."
Amy Fine Collins, Art in America, 1/88
"Like the Luminists, Downes tranquilizes familiar scenes by using long, restful formats. But the subject matter, compositions, and most interestingly, the vantage points Downes chooses are unmistakably modern. The views seem to be glimpsed through the windows of cars, trains, and even airplanes; speed and distance inform all the compositions. Everything is observed through the schism of 20th century technology. The sleek, cool facture and arching horizons make one think of fisheye lens photography...Downes actually works from on-site drawings which he elaborates into oil sketches and the fully realized paintings...Industrial wastelands...appeal to Downes because they appear lonely and mysterious but not menacing. Downes exploits their loneliness by depopulating them...The grim settings are aestheticized by clean, stark, modernist compositions and pellucid washes of color..."

Nancy Grimes, ARTnews, 11/88
"Rackstraw Downes, 49, believes that certain painters are drawn to realism 'by some fascination with or love of the forms depicted, or by a story that can only be told in a naturalistic language.' The British-born painter, who studied at Cambridge and Yale, started out as a geometric abstractionist. Today he shows at Hirschl and Adler Modern in New York, exhibiting cityscapes and landscapes that record, with Olympian detachment, the coexistence of nature and culture...By using observation, Downes avoided painting on an overly conceptualized abstract format. 'I originally painted from nature as a challenge to my habits...I looked at something that was already a meaningful subject and then at the canvas and wondered what forms I would have to make in order to put it on the canvas. I found that to be a big challenge to my abilities and I still do.' "