A direct challenge to Abstract Expressionism’s subjectivity and gestural vigor, Photorealism was informed by the Pop predilection for representational imagery, popular iconography and tools, like projectors and airbrushes, borrowed from the worlds of commercial art and design.
Whether gritty or gleaming, the subject matter favored by Photorealists is instantly, if vaguely, familiar. It’s the stuff of yellowing snapshots and fugitive memories. The bland and the garish alike flicker between crystal-clear reality and dreamy illusion, inviting the viewer to contemplate a single moment rather than igniting a story.
The virtues of the “photo” in Photorealist art — infused as they are with dazzling qualities that are easily blurred in reproduction — are as elusive as they are allusive. “Much Photorealist painting has the vacuity of proportion and intent of an idiot-savant, long on look and short on personal timbre,” John Arthur wrote (rather admiringly) in the catalogue essay for Realism/Photorealism, a 1980 exhibition at the Philbrook Museum of Art, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At its best, Photorealism is a perpetually paused tug-of-war between the sacred and the profane, the general and the specific, the record and the object.
“Robert Bechtle invented Photorealism, in 1963,” says veteran art dealer Louis Meisel. “He took a picture of himself in the mirror with the car outside and then painted it. That was the first one.”
The meaning of the term, which began for Meisel as “a superficial way of defining and promoting a group of painters,” evolved with time, and the core group of Photorealists slowly expanded to include younger artists who traded Rolleiflexes for 60-megapixel cameras, using advanced digital technology to create paintings that transcend the detail of conventional photographs.
On 1stDibs, the collection of Photorealist art includes work by Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, Audrey Flack, Charles Bell and others.
Green Oval Saucer with Matches and Nuts
By Richard Shaw
Located in Burlingame, CA
In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give ...
Porcelain, Glaze, Underglaze
Alexander The Great's Siege Tent, Halicarnassus, ca. 333 BC, Miniature Room
Located in Chicago, IL
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city in Caria, in Anatolia. It was located in southwest Caria, on an advantageous site on the Gulf of Gökova, which is now in Bodrum, Turkey. The city was famous for the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, ranked as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Halicarnassus was loyal to the Persians and formed part of the Persian Empire until Alexander the Great captured it at the siege of Halicarnassus in 333 BC. Here, the Kupjack Studios have meticulously researched the era and have gone to painstaking detail to present this miniature version of Alexander's Tent. Based on a scale of one foot equals one inch, each piece of furniture, rug, decoration is fabricated with exacting detail. Kupjack Miniatures Alexander's Siege Tent, Halicarnassus, ca. 333 BC, circa 2003 mixed media 24.50h x 22.75w x 18.50d in 62.23h x 57.78w x 46.99d cm KJK004 Eugene Kupjack and his sons Hank and Jay created museum quality miniature rooms...
Mixed Media
$7,500
Marc Sijan Hyperrealist Contemporary Plaster Sculpture Woman and Champagne Glass
By Marc Sijan
Located in Surfside, FL
Marc Sijan (American, born 1946) Hyper realistic wall sculpture. titled and dated on verso "Champagne Glass" 1986 Limited edition number 14/95. Features a Art Deco style girl in ...
Acrylic Polymer, Glass, Plaster
$4,000
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-Unicorn Spaceman 18" (Blue & Pink), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
$4,000
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-Arms Open (Blue, Turquoise & Gold), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-The Thinking Man (Amber), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
$4,000
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-The Thinking Spaceman (Copper & Silver), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-The Thinking Man (Black), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-Tree Pose (Purple & Gold), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-Magic 18" (Pink), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - Collectible-Wide Open (Silver & Matte Black), Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite, chrome finish with matte details This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful ...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - The Sitting Spaceman, Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Carbon fibre with chrome finish This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this ce...
Resin
Brendan Murphy - Coming Out, Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: Resin composite with carbon fiber This artwork will be shipped directly from the artist's studio. "Brendan Murphy is one of the most visionary and impactful artists of this ...
Resin
Kevin Champeny - Fifty Shades - Teal Bouquet, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted and hand cast urethane flowers "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved t...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - A Cut Above - Diamond, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 hand cast & sculpted gems "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to New York...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - A Cut Above - Emerald, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 hand cast & sculpted gems "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to New York in ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Green, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Purple, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Pink, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Blue, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Charcoal, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Yellow, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Red, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Orange, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Gray, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Carried Away: Teal, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 3,500 sculpted & hand cast Birkin bags "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to N...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Tethered Butterfly Orange, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 15,000 sculpted & hand cast flowers "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to New ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Tethered Butterfly Pink, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 15,000 sculpted & hand cast flowers "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to New ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Tethered Butterfly Blue, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 15,000 sculpted & hand cast flowers "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to New ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Sweet Talk: ONLY YOU, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 2,500 sculpted & hand-cast candy hearts "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Sweet Talk: HUG ME, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 2,500 sculpted & hand-cast candy hearts "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Sweet Talk: BE MINE, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 2,500 sculpted & hand-cast candy hearts "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Sweet Talk: LOVE, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 2,500 sculpted & hand-cast candy hearts "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Sweet Talk: XOXO, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 2,500 sculpted & hand-cast candy hearts "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Sweet Talk: EAT ME, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 2,500 sculpted & hand-cast candy hearts "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved to ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Candied Series: Fig, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 1,400 hand cast & sculpted pieces of candy "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Candied Series: Lemon, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 1,400 hand cast & sculpted pieces of candy "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Scooped, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 10,000 sculpted & hand-cast scoops of ice cream "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and ...
Polyurethane
Kevin Champeny - Nature’s Candy, Wall Sculpture
Located in Greenwich, CT
Medium: 30,000 sculpted & hand-cast pieces of candy "Kevin Champeny began drawing before he could speak. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Champeny attended Beloit College and moved...
Polyurethane
$85,000
Lovebomb
By Marc Quinn
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A sculpture by Marc Quinn. “Lovebomb” is large scale, floral sculpture of orchids, photo laminate on aluminum, in a palette of of bright colors by British conceptual artist, Marc Qui...
Laminate
Palette with Ink Pencil Eraser
By Richard Shaw
Located in Burlingame, CA
In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give ...
Glaze, Underglaze, Porcelain
$2,800
The People, signed 3D photo realist mixed media sculpture of people viewing art
Located in New York, NY
Howard Kanovitz The People, 1971 3-5 Mixed Media Silkscreen on Plexiglas and aluminum base Signed: Artist's Signature etched on the work and annotated A.P., Edition of 1 (an Artists Proof, aside from the regular edition of 75) 15 × 16 × 1 1/2 inches Signatured etched on the work and annotated A.P. , aside from the limited edition of 75. This excellent 1971 3-D photo realist work "The People" is a multiple based upon a larger work the artist did of people beholding a work of art. Here, we see them only from behind, because they are busy looking at art - a clever photorealist work - art about art - catching people in the process of looking at art. Howard Kanovitz Biography Howard Kanovitz was a leader of Photo Realism: a documenter of style and fashion, depicting members of the art scene at openings, or superimposing known critics and curators onto images of board room meetings. In his particular style, he explored the intersections of painting, photography, fiction, and fact. Kanovitz studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and The Art Studenst League in Woodstock where he worked with Yasuo Kyniyoshi before moving to New York an apprenticing with Franz Kline. As a member of New York’s downtown art scene, Kanovitz painted abstract paintings, which he exhibited at Tenth Street Galleries early in his career. Following his father’s death in 1963, Kanovitz went through family photos, an experience which prompted him to interrogate the relationship between images and perception. At this time, Kanovitz abandoned abstraction in favor of a figurative style and worked arduously in this new direction. These efforts culminated in a 1966 solo exhibition at the Jewish Museum, securing his place as a leader of Photo Realism among artists such as Larry Rivers, Alex Katz, and Chuck Close. His photo based, representational paintings exhibited at the Jewish Museum show were the first to be called “photo-realist” and shocked many in the art community prompting a symposium which was held at the New York Studio School for “downtown artists” to weigh in on this perennial “hot topic”, newly addressed by one of their own. Kanovitz first began using airbrush in 1967, giving his paintings a feeling of photographic perfection. Cut out figures created using this precisionist technique were placed in the viewers space, often in front of Kanovitz’s painted canvas depicting the luminaries of the art world of the time. This type of installation was the centerpiece in the first of several Waddell Gallery shows. Kanovitz has been the subject of many solo museum shows internationally and his work is collected by institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Britain, London, and Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna. -Courtesy Eric Firestone...
Plastic, Plexiglass, Mixed Media, Etching, Screen
$14,000
Paint Palette with Spilling Dixie Cup. Realist Sculpture Highly Collectable
By Richard Shaw
Located in Burlingame, CA
In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give...
Porcelain, Glaze, Underglaze
Marc Sijan Hyper Realist Contemporary Cast Acrylic Resin Sculpture Portrait Bust
By Marc Sijan
Located in Surfside, FL
A cast acrylic sculpture titled Chin Up by American artist Marc Sijan. This sculpture is made from acrylic and portrays the upper torso of a clothed woman wearing a bandana over her ...
Resin, Lucite, Acrylic Polymer
Oil Palette with Watercolor Tray
By Richard Shaw
Located in Burlingame, CA
In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give...
Porcelain, Glaze, Underglaze
Spilling Pepsi Cup with Coffee Lid and Five of Spades
By Richard Shaw
Located in Burlingame, CA
In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give a convincing illusion of reality. Shaw's work replicates everyday objects (such as tin cans, playing cards, and cutlery) in porcelain. He then glazes these components and groups them in unexpected and even jarring combinations. While interested in how objects can reflect a person’s identity, Shaw also poses questions regarding the relationship between appearance and authenticity. Spilling Pepsi Cup with Coffee Lid...
Porcelain, Glaze, Underglaze
Sliding Origami Steamship with Ten of Hearts
By Richard Shaw
Located in Burlingame, CA
In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give ...
Porcelain, Glaze, Underglaze