American Contemporary Realism
America's Realism Roots
Exhibition of Bo Bartlett's work at PAFA
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American Contemporary Realism

Date:  October 2004

Contemporary Realism is today’s prevalent American art movement. Many art historians agree that we are currently experiencing a Realist Revival and as such I’ve appraised many of contemporary realist works demonstrating the current collecting interest in the new Realist movement.

Contemporary Realists have lived up to writer Stephen Crane’s description of the true artist as "the man who leaves pictures of his own time" as Crane could have been describing the contributions of American artists including Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Chuck Close, and Sidney Goodman. Portraits of the world around us are what we love about Realism. 

America's Realism Roots

In the 1880s, Thomas Eakins advocated Realism as a professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (a.k.a. PAFA) and nearly 150 years later, Philadelphia, PA remains a center for Realist art. Recently, I presented an art history lecture about 150 Years of American Realism in conjunction with the 200th Anniversary of the country’s oldest art school and museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 

I have curated exhibits and published widely on the topic of Contemporary American Realism highlighting the work artists such as Vincent Desiderio, Frank Lind, Chris Wright, David Graeme Baker, Joseph A. Smith, and, yes, Bo Bartlett. Also, my PAFA lecture afforded me the opportunity to comment on the museum’s exhibition of American Realist paintings by PAFA alumnus, Bo Bartlett. 

Exhibition of Bo Barlett's work at PAFA

The Bartlett show at PAFA was magical and I was dazzled by Bartlett's typically engaging, painterly, and heroic works. Viewers enter Bartlett’s world of close-knit images of family and friends, quiet homes and active studios in suburban Philadelphia, PA and on Wheaton Island, ME, and intensely focused still lifes. While captivated by many old and new oil paintings, gouaches, and drawings at the show, I enjoyed revisiting old Bartlett standbys like The Box and Dreamland and experiencing new and breathtaking figure works, Ishmael and Homeland. 

Familiar with Bartlett’s oeuvre, I was unexpectedly taken by the enormity and beauty of a new work called Goddess, in front of which I uncharacteristically exclaimed audibly “WOW”. Goddess wouldn't fit in most museums or artists’ studios. Measuring an unbelievable 140 x 212 inches, the painting of a woman beneath a quilt is a show-stopper. Bartlett masters the human form and facial expression in the spirit of his mentors, Andrew Wyeth and Nelson Shanks. The patches of the quilt in Goddess serve as miniature Impressionist landscape paintings. I constantly hear people downplay contemporary painting as uninformed or inexplicable, I think Bartlett's compositions thrill audiences. 

Dr. Lori
Director
Masterpiece Technologies Inc.