"Estes is a paradigmatic example of a world-class artist who is also a consummate artisan. He uses his own extraordinary skill as a means to open up possibilities of form and content."

Images of New York City have always been central to Richard Estes' art and inevitably provide their own iconic power, recognizability, and narrative associations. Through an examination of his New York City, Estes focuses on the artist’s technique and process, as he complexly commingles reflections and reality, interior and exterior space, and close-ups of storefronts and panoramic vistas. Columbus Circle, images of Wall Street, the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges, Central Park, Madison Park, the Staten Island Ferry, and commercial storefronts are all under close observation in the eyes and hands of the painter.

Since the mid-1960s, Estes has made his art only from subjects and sites he has seen and photographed himself. His fastidious translations of those photographs unite a modern technology with the traditional pursuit of representational art. Yet, as precise as Estes’ paintings and prints may appear to be, they are built with subtle inventive transformations of his often multiple source photographs. In realizing his compositions, he deletes details and figures, shifts colors, and alters perspectives and vanishing points.

From March 10 to September 20, 2015, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) presents Richard Estes: Painting New York City. Images courtesy: The Museum of Arts and Design, New York.