Ian Hornak On Sale
1980s Photorealist Still-life Paintings
Acrylic
1980s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Acrylic, Canvas
1980s Photorealist Still-life Paintings
Acrylic
1980s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
1990s Photorealist Still-life Paintings
Acrylic
1990s Photorealist Still-life Paintings
Oil
1990s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Wood Panel, Acrylic
1980s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
1970s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
1960s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
1970s Photorealist Landscape Paintings
Acrylic
1980s Renaissance Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Ink
People Also Browsed
20th Century Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Masonite, Acrylic
1870s Victorian Landscape Paintings
Oil, Wood Panel
Vintage 1980s English Neoclassical Porcelain
Porcelain
1870s Victorian Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Aesthetic Movement Figurative Paintings
Oil
1730s Old Masters Animal Paintings
Oil
Early 20th Century American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings
Paint, Oil, Pencil, Canvas
Early 20th Century Landscape Paintings
Oil
1970s Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Board
1970s Surrealist Abstract Paintings
Acrylic
Early 2000s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Canvas, Oil
17th Century Old Masters Still-life Paintings
Cotton Canvas, Canvas, Oil
Artist Comments
In this modern figurative abstract, artist Robin Okun creates an evocative image in blues, reds, and gold. Five figures stand tall like towers blanketed in ri...
21st Century and Contemporary Figurative Paintings
Acrylic
1910s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Recent Sales
1960s Renaissance Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Charcoal, Archival Paper
1970s Photorealist Landscape Prints
Screen
Ian Hornak On Sale For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a Ian Hornak On Sale?
Ian Hornak for sale on 1stDibs
Painter and draftsman Ian Hornak created vivid hyperrealist and Photorealist works, and was celebrated for his visionary incorporation of multiple-exposure photography into his landscape paintings.
The subject matter at the heart of the world’s finest Photorealist works flickers between crystal-clear reality and dreamy illusion, and Hornak’s representational art is just as compelling, enveloping the viewer with rich imagery and vibrant colors.
The painter was born John Francis Hornak in Philadelphia to Slovakian immigrants who moved to New York when he was still an infant. He became enamored of visual art at an early age — for his ninth birthday, Hornak received a set of oil paints and a book about Renaissance paintings. He reproduced many of the book’s photos of the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and others so well that they looked like the photographs themselves.
Hornak studied art at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. After earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts, he moved to New York City in 1968 and befriended Lowell Nesbitt. The realist artist introduced him to Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Robert Indiana and others. Hornak resisted the Abstract Expressionist and Pop styles of the era, instead creating work that was noted for its Surrealist and even Romantic elements.
In 1970, Hornak debuted his first paintings in his multiple-exposure style. A year later, the Tibor de Nagy Gallery hosted his first New York City solo exhibition, and his prominence in the art world grew. From 1986 until his death in 2002, Hornak produced botanical and still-life paintings inspired by Flemish and Dutch masters.
Hornak’s work can be found in the permanent collections of many institutions, such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the Library of Congress.
On 1stDibs, find authentic Ian Hornak paintings, drawings, prints and more.
A Close Look at Photorealist Art
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.