Philip Pearlstein

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Pearlstein, Philip (1924– ). American painter and printmaker, a leading proponent of the return to naturalism and interest in the human figure that was one aspect of the move away from the dominance of Abstract Expressionism in American art. He was born in Pittsburgh and studied there at the Carnegie Institute, graduating in 1949, before settling in New York. In 1955 he took an MA in art history at New York University. His early works (mainly landscapes) were painted with a vigorous gestural handling, but in the 1960s he developed a cooler, more even type of brushwork. He specializes in starkly unidealized portrayals of the nude figure (singly or in pairs), usually set in domestic surroundings (Male and Female Models Leaning on Chair, Art Institute of Chicago, 1970). Because of the clarity of his compositions and the relentlessness of his scrutiny, he is sometimes described as a Superrealist, but his work has an individuality that puts him outside this classification. He uses harsh lighting, oblique angles, and cropping of the image (heads are often excluded and the body is seen in voyeuristic close-up) in a way that suggests candid photography, but his pictures do not try to counterfeit the effect of photographs; the handling of paint is smooth—but vigorous rather than finicky. In addition to oils, he has also worked in watercolour and produced etchings and lithographs. Pearlstein calls himself a ‘post-abstract realist’ and describes the figures in his paintings as ‘a constellation of still-life forms'. He feels that he has ‘rescued the human figure from its tormented, agonized condition given it by the expressionist artists'.

Pearlstein, Philip (b Pittsburgh, 24 May 1924). American painter, a leading proponent of the return to naturalism and interest in the human figure that was one aspect of the move away from the dominance of Abstract Expressionism. His early works (mainly landscapes) were painted with vigorous gestural handling, but in the 1960s he developed a cooler, more even type of brushwork. He specializes in starkly unidealized portrayals of the nude figure (singly or in pairs), usually set in domestic surroundings. Because of the clarity of his compositions and the relentlessness of his scrutiny, he is sometimes described as a Superrealist, but his work has an individuality that puts him outside this classification. He uses harsh lighting, oblique angles, and cropping of the image (heads are often excluded and the body is seen in voyeuristic close-up) in a way that suggests candid photography, but his pictures do not try to counterfeit the effect of photographs; the handling of paint is smooth—but vigorous rather than finicky.

Pearlstein, Philip (1924– ). American painter, a leading proponent of the return to naturalism and interest in the human figure that was one aspect of the move away from the dominance of Abstract Expressionism. His early works (mainly landscapes) were painted with vigorous gestural handling, but in the 1960s he developed a cooler, more even type of brushwork. He specializes in starkly unidealized portrayals of the nude figure (singly or in pairs), usually set in domestic surroundings. Because of the clarity of his compositions and the relentlessness of his scrutiny, he is sometimes described as a Superrealist, but his work has an individuality that puts him outside this classification. He uses harsh lighting, oblique angles, and cropping of the image (heads are often excluded and the body is seen in voyeuristic close-up) in a way that suggests candid photography, but his pictures do not try to counterfeit the effect of photographs; the handling of paint is smooth—but vigorous rather than finicky.

Philip Pearlstein 1924–, American painter, b. Pittsburgh. He paints monumental nude figures directly from life with a verisimilitude that captures sagging and sallow flesh, works that recall photorealism in their precise imagery and smooth surfaces. Pearlstein's style, which has changed little since the 1960s, is aggressively literal and purposefully unromantic. His subjects, which have become more complicated over the years, are depersonalized through arbitrary cropping and harsh lighting. Pearlstein's paintings have been exhibited widely and examples are in numerous major collections.