Richard Estes

Richard Estes: Urban Landscapes

After initially working as a graphic artist for publishers and advertising agencies, Estes shifted to painting fulltime in the 1960s, promoting a version of hyperrealism that was visually descriptive of the increasingly high-tech postwar age.

He is now renowned as the premier painter of American cityscapes, yet he also explored the possibilities of printmaking throughout his career. In 1971, he began to collaborate with Edition Domberger in Stuttgart, Germany, where he worked closely with master printers on a highly sophisticated screen printing process.

Over the course of 20 years, Estes and Domberger collaborated on dozens of complex screen prints, many of which are included in the exhibition. Estes’ prints portray his ongoing fascination with city architecture, including strong geometric views of storefronts, shopping malls, restaurants, bridges, and trains, all apparently bereft of human figures.

He found the gleaming, reflective surfaces of New York City especially irresistible. His manner of painting and (later) printing the reflections he encountered on metal and glass surfaces displays astounding technical skill. Through screen printing, he was able to achieve uniform and intense effects that elude other printing processes because of screen printing’s ability to evenly print layers of inks and colors, whether translucent, opaque, glossy, matte, or transparent.

Decades later, his detailed views of New York City and other sites remain vibrant records of urban topography. Estes’ subjects now hover between past and present—some signage and buildings remain, others have been demolished or replaced. Still, these prints retain their vitality despite the everchanging façades of the urban landscape.