NYC Parking Lot

Born in Kewanee, Illinois, Richard Estes studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1956. He worked in advertising and publishing for a decade before giving full time and attention to painting. In the late 1960s Estes emerged, along with a number of other like-minded artists who were working in a highly realistic style that in many ways was a response to the minimalist and other pervasive abstract styles. As a recognized leader in the contemporary movement that became known as Photorealism, his work has been seen with ever-increasing frequency in exhibitions presented by museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe.

During the late 1960s and through the 1970s it was the urban landscape that most captivated the artist. Estes was struck with wonderment by the variety of the city and the reflections created by the massive amounts of glass building fronts. "NYC Parking Lot" illustrates the artist's interest in depicting these reflections by depicting a group of cars and the distorted reflections of the city around them. Working from photographs instead of slavishly copying from the photo, the artist recreates and often readjusts the images once the composition is underway. Of his use of the camera, Estes wrote, "the camera is like one eye and it really deals only with values. And painting is trickery, because you can make people respond by guiding their eyes around the picture."