CategoriesStyles and Movements
American Realism
Realist painting in the United States in the 20th century, centred on city life, ordinary people and the look of American places.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
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About
American realism rested on a conviction inherited from Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer: that close attention to ordinary life was a serious artistic goal. In the early 1900s Robert Henri urged his students to paint the city as they found it, and the circle later called the Ashcan School did so. George Bellows's Stag at Sharkey's (1909) shows an illegal boxing match in thick, fast strokes.
Between the wars realism took many forms. Edward Hopper painted stillness and isolation in diners, offices and small towns, most famously in Nighthawks (1942). Social Realists such as Ben Shahn addressed injustice and labour, the Regionalists celebrated the Midwest, and Ivan Albright rendered decaying flesh and objects in obsessive detail. Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World (1948) carried a spare, tempera-based realism into the post-war years, even as abstraction took centre stage. Look for clear light, specific places and people caught in unguarded moments.
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American Regionalism
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Arte Povera
Ashcan School
Bad Painting
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Baroque
Bauhaus
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Beijing East Village
Bengal School of Art
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