Supreme Hardware
Modern and Contemporary Art

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Supreme Hardware
Artwork Details
Artist/Maker
Richard Estes
American, born 1932
American, born 1932
Date
1974
Medium
Oil and acrylic on canvas
Accession #
1978.119
Dimensions
Please contact the Museum for more information.
Location
Currently Not on View
Description
Unlike many photorealist painters, Richard Estes uses neither a grid system nor a projector to transfer photographic images to canvas. Rather, he refers to multiple photographs of his subject as source materials. He sketches the entire scene with acrylic paint and builds upon it with oil paint, adding and sharpening details and polishing reflective surfaces. As in Supreme Hardware, the absence of narrative in Estes’s work challenges the viewer to confront the visual cacophony of urban life. His technique de-emphasizes the artist’s individual touch and stresses the impersonal and anonymous character of the big city.
Credit
Gift of Virginia Carroll CrawfordImage Copyright
© Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York