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.
"Two Nudes with Red Drape" (1965)
Around 1961, when he was in his late 30s, Mr. Pearlstein began to paint pictures of nude people from life. It was an old-fashioned idea, but in his hands, it became shockingly modern. He stripped the nude of almost all its customary associations. Beauty, eroticism, mythology, allegory: all the traditional justifications for nudity in painting were gone, leaving only the bare fact of the naked human body.
Around 1961, when he was in his late 30s, Mr. Pearlstein began to paint pictures of nude people from life. It was an old-fashioned idea, but in his hands, it became shockingly modern. He stripped the nude of almost all its customary associations. Beauty, eroticism, mythology, allegory: all the traditional justifications for nudity in painting were gone, leaving only the bare fact of the naked human body.
Photo: Courtesy Betty Cuningham Gallery
- Article: It Is What It Is: Portraits of the Human Figure
- Times Topic: Philip Pearlstein
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