A Dialogue Between
Gregory J. Peterson and Richard Estes
original portrait drawings by
Damon Lehrer
I wanted to convince
my friend, the Photo-Realist artist Richard Estes, to consent to this
interview. We were at dinner, and I said to him, "Richard, I shall
lead the story by saying 'Among the giants in the world of Contemporary
Realism Richard Estes is a god.' How does that sound?" I suppose
it worked because a few weeks later I am in his apartment and we are
having lunch, the tape recorder is going.
Well, what I said
may have sounded like flattery, and to any other artist probably would
have been, but let the truth be known, Richard Estes is a god among
artists today, with legions of followers acknowledged and unacknowledged,
aspiring to his masterly style (and few, if any succeeding) and decades
of lofty prices in the commercial market place also attesting to his
preeminence. Of course, the art itself, at its best, transcends all
outward indicia of success. Only by looking at his paintings and contemplating
them deeply does one find the secrets of his stature. His work is at
once traditional, contemporary, and timeless. His urban landscapes capture
the essence of the moment they are created without wallowing in pop
ephemera.
I first became aware
of Richard's work in an art history course I was taking in the early
seventies while a student at Columbia College. There we were shown a
slide of his famous "Telephone Booths" painting, as the instructor
introduced us to the school of Photo-Realism. That picture has remained
etched in my mind for decades, and I always daydreamed about it and
wondered where it was. Many years later I started collecting Realism
myself. Then in the galleries I encountered Richard's grand and stately
cityscapes. His utterly precise, muted, portraits of Manhattan have
an air of authority and definitiveness about them, their bravura technical
feats hinting at the haughtiness and arrogance that typifies the metropolis
they depict. What kind of man could produce works of such distinction?
Would he share their cold aloofness? The thought of ever meeting him
was kind of scary.
But getting to know
Richard has been as astonishing as his artwork in its own way. He is
an unique individual, a man of humility, openness and humanity. A gathering
at his house is likely to include art world luminaries, members of the
oldest, wealthiest families in America, nine-to-fivers, struggling artists
and just plain strugglers, all treated with equal respect. His utter
lack of arrogance, hauteur or self absorption is a jolting surprise
considering how much he could get away with were he so inclined.
That is, however,
unless one is on the subject of art. Go to an exhibition with Richard
at your peril. His hypercritical eye can rip apart anyone, anyone, and
your own eyes will never see that hapless artist the same. On a trip
with Richard to see Matisse one day Matisse was taken down a notch when
Richard disdainfully pointed out how the Frenchman was sloppy and inept
at painting hands. Now I have problems with Matisse. When we went to
the Metropolitan to see Vermeer he-well, let me spare you those cruel
truths.
Richard cooks lunch
and serves it in his immaculate, very grand apartment and studio overlooking
Central Park. The first course dishes are washed before we're into the
second course. This meticulous side of his personality of course comes
through in his paintings.
GJP: Richard, where
were you born and when did you start painting?
ESTES: I was born
in Kewanee, Illinois, population of four or five thousand. That was
the major town, but wasn't where we really lived. That's only where
the hospital was located. We actually lived in Sheffield, 20 miles from
there. These towns are about 120 miles from Chicago.
GJP: How did you
start painting?
ESTES: I don't even
remember. I always liked to draw. I was not much more than eight or
nine years old when I got a Christmas present of an oil painting set.
I guess they encouraged me to draw a little bit. If you go into the
other room on the shelf you'll see a little thing I did when I must
have been about four years old about so big, signed "Dick Estes."
GJP: When did you
seek to become a professional? Did you go to an art school?
ESTES: I went to
the Chicago Art Institute. I never really thought I'd end up as a painter,
rather, I thought I would probably do commercial art or design or something
like that. I didn't think I'd be successful as a painter although I
always wanted to do it. In school I concentrated on painting but I figured
I'd have to face the music and do illustration when I got out, which
I did for about ten years.
GJP: How did you
cross over to fine art?
ESTES: I took work
around and most galleries didn't like it but finally I hooked up with
a couple who did, Allan Stone, and Ivan Karp who worked at Castelli.
That must have been around '68 or '69 when I had my first show.
GJP: Did the work
have pretty much the look it has now?
ESTES: Pretty much.
I had things like this picture here with wrecked cars which probably
struck their pop fancy.
GJP: But your work
isn't really "Pop" at all. It doesn't have the superficial
feel of pop art. However, there was a sort of school developing at that
time. Did you identify with the other Photo-Realists?
ESTES: I didn't
know any of the Photo-Realists. It's funny, but a lot of people sort
of developed it independently..
GJP: What about
your Telephone Booths painting. When did you do that?
ESTES: That was
one of the very first, I think I did that about 1968. Allan Stone sold
it. Some investment banker bought it first, with four or five paintings
from that show, but when there was a stock market crash a couple of
years later and he sold all my works. They sort of saved his neck. Then
Allan sold it to Thyssen [referring to the late Baron Hans Heinrich
Thyssen-Bornemisza, one of the greatest collectors of Western Art of
the 20th Century], he was a friend of his, and told him, "buy this",
so he did.
Estes remained with
Allan Stone until about 1990 because "Allan had basically closed
his gallery. He had a fight with the Landlord, just moved out and didn't
find another space for about three years. So that's when I went to Marlborough."
Estes remains there to this day.
GJP: How do you
find the subject matter for your pieces?
ESTES: I just wander
around and look at things and take a lot of pictures, then if something
strikes me and I think it's interesting . . ..
GJP: When did you
start figuring reflective surfaces into your images?
ESTES: Right away.
At this certain point when I did those telephone booths. I went through
a phase of going and sitting in cafeterias and drawing and going out
and doing drawing,but I knew from all my work in advertising that the
illustrators all use photographs, and I said "Why am I doing all
this? It's masochistic" It just makes it more difficult, not necessarily
any better. The photographs are what makes it possible to do all these
things with reflections and things that are just there for a moment
when the light hits. It seemed a little absurd to get an easel sitting
in the street, with the wind blowing and people stopping you to ask
stupid questions. And I didn't really want to do things just out of
my mind; make up things. . . Whatever I would make up just turned out
trite.
GJP: Did you ever
dally with pure abstraction?
ESTES: Not really.
I think abstraction is just another part of painting. You always have
to have that quality, but it's just one element of the painting. Pure
abstraction is like having a lot of sound without any melody.
GJP: Mondrian doesn't
appeal to you?
ESTES: Not really.
Jackson Pollack is really quite pitiful. I mean, only the 20th Century
could come up with something like that.
GJP: Who are some
other painters whom you admire? How about some historical figures; have
you any particular favorites, or people whom you think about when you're
painting?
ESTES: Actually
I like Canaletto and Bellotto a lot, people like that. You name it.
That's like asking a musician whether he likes Beethoven and Wagner,
and whatever, they're the classic ones. So it's kind of silly to ask
whether you like Michelangelo and Goya. . . .
That Richard is
an admirer and follower, in a way, of Canaletto and Belotto is abundantly
clear if one looks at a number of paintings he's retained in his own
collection. Hung in his dining room is my very favorite painting of
his, a view of the Arno in contemporary Florence, with the Ponte Vecchio
in the background. A few figures in contemporary dress indicate the
period. Unlike the earlier Telephone Booths which is downright jazzy
in comparison, it captures the same serenity and majesty of the above
named Old Masters, without introducing any artifice or romance. The
marvel of Estes greatest works is that they purport to record an empirical
scene, but also hint of God-given orderliness and a enigmatic tranquility.
ESTES: (Continues)
I think I like Eakins, he is what I like.
GJP: Were you aware
when you started to work openly with photography that Eakins had used
it?
ESTES: I always
knew Eakins used photography. He was rather famous for that. Remember
his association with Muybridge, for example, who did the motion photographs.
Now they've recently discovered Eakins used photography a lot more than
we thought, but it comes as no great surprise. Degas used photography
a lot, Manet. . . Soon as it was invented they started using it. And
Hockney says they always had these instruments for tracing images. There's
no way that way Bellotto or Canaletto could have done those paintings
without the camera lucida because they're too accurate. It's not a matter
of just approximating what everything looks like, it's quite nailed
down, down to how many windows you can see in the tower and things like
that. Once I went to Venice and I had a book of Canaletto's paintings
and you can find the sites and you can go there and see how accurate
they are because a lot of it is still there.
GJP: When you were
in school did you feel a stigma if you were to use a photo?
ESTES: Well I never
did in school, only after I got out of school and started working in
advertising, then I started using photographs.
GJP: Do you remember
any of the products you illustrated?
ESTES: Mostly I
specialized in industrial advertising. We did power plants or tires
. . . Nothing glamorous, although we did do some annual reports for
corporations like IBM, things like that.
GJP: Were you freelancing
all that time?
ESTES: I had periods
when I worked for different studios. I worked for about a year for Popular
Science Magazine. Freelanced more after that.
That left him time
to do his painting.
GJP: Whom do you
admire working today?
Richard declines
to discuss individuals (and this is a shame, really, because his put-downs
of artists he believes can't paint can be hilarious).
ESTES: I think there
are some really good realist painters but they don't get any recognition
from the press. And yet they'll write these long articles in the New
Yorker and the Times about really dreadful stuff and they don't pay
any attention to Realism. It's sort of an ideology that's taken over
the press. It's like the old Communists. They just don't talk about
anything they don't agree with.
We take a little
tour of the room Richard uses as his studio overlooking Central Park;
an expanse twice the size of my own apartment. (His main residence is
a very large house in Maine where his studio appears to have been converted
from a ballroom.) All is spotless. Perched on an industrial sized easel,
at the top of which are clipped an array of tiny halogen lamps, is his
current opus, a study of Broadway, facing south just below Lincoln Center.
Among the faint reflections in a storefront window under a scaffold
is that of a large American flag. Richard has a formidable collection
of artworks here and throughout the apartment which is decorated with
Art Deco overtones. In Manhattan the collection includes works by Arshile
Gorky, Jean Cocteau, Joseph Stella, Marsden Hartley and the exciting
young Brooklyn artist Andrew Lenaghan (whose work his highly influenced
by Estes and his followers) on loan from the George Adams Gallery.
Several weeks after
our interview I am off to Madrid to see the Thyssen collection. Baron
Thyssen has passed away, and I'm told there is black bunting surrounding
the entrance to the museum. Finally, after thirty years I will get to
see the famous Telephone Booths. I see the entire museum from top to
bottom, dazzled by the collection, dazed in a fog of jetlag. Then I
spot the Telephone Booths in a framed poster in the museum shop. Somehow
I missed the actual painting. I go back and make inquiries of an official
who informs me that it's kept on the patio, currently under renovation.
Telephone Booths is out of public view. Maybe I'll see it in another
thirty years!
The portraits of
Richard Estes accompanying this article were drawn at Estes' Maine residence
on August 9, 2002 by Boston artist Damon Lehrer. Click
Here to see more images by Richard Estes.
