John Salt

Arrested Vehicle with Red, Photorealist Lithograph by John Salt

1972

John Salt (b. 1937 - ) is an English artist, whose greatly detailed paintings from the late 1960s onwards made him one of the pioneers of the photorealist school. Although Salt's work has developed through several distinct phases, it has generally focused on images of cars, often shown wrecked or abandoned within a suburban or semi-rural American landscape, with the banality and dishevelment of the subject matter contrasting with the immaculate and meticulous nature of the work's execution. His father was a motor repair garage owner, whose stepfather in turn had been a signwriter painting stripes on the bodies of cars. As a young boy Salt was encouraged to draw and paint, and at the age of fifteen he gained admittance to the Birmingham School of Art, where he studied from 1952 to 1958. He studied at numerous other well-known art schools in England and the US, influenced by the work of English artist Prunella Clough and American Pop Art figures such as Robert Rauschenberg. Salt sought a more distinct artistic identity and was encouraged to explore a wide variety of styles and techniques, ultimately leading to and interest in photographers Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, and how their documentary style relieved them of the self-conscious need to adopt an artistic technique.