Styles & Movements

Photorealism

Artists have striven for realistic detail in painting since the beginning of artmaking and many still do. Photorealism distinguishes itself from the aim of other realistic depiction in its focus on detailed and unidealized representation, often of the banal, everyday, or even sordid aspects of life. Subjects in photorealistic paintings are typically portrayed in a deadpan fashion and, in some cases, it is obvious that they were painted from a photograph, not a live model.

As a movement in contemporary art, photorealism is considered to have started in the 70s, and continued well into the 80s. Artists who were making photorealistic paintings in the 80s (some of who had been making them throughout the 70s) include Chuck Close, Rackstraw Downes, Richard Estes, Semyon Faibisovitch, Janet Fish, and Malcolm Morley.