Paris Opera House

Dating

2000

About the artpiece

“I always had the feeling one should paint what’s in your world. Look at the world and try to understand it,” said Richard Estes, a founding figure of the international Photo-Realist movement of the late 1960s and a celebrated name in American Realism. Often referred to as the “king of Photo-Realism”, Estes’s works stand out for their meticulous, Canaletto-esque precision. Using projectors, slides, and panoramic lenses, he solves perspective and distortion problems to create highly complex, composite views that capture a split-second illusion of reality.
Though his work is visually precise, it’s the perspective and choice of subjects that make Estes’s art particularly striking. For example, in later works, such as his depictions of the Paris Opera House (the present work), he blends multiple perspectives to create compositions where the ordinary and the monumental coexist. The Opera House is presented without its iconic dome, reflecting Estes’s artistic license to balance the scene, while mundane details like the interior of a bus and parked cars introduce a subtle narrative. This shift marks a departure from the more isolated, urban scenes of his earlier work, highlighting the human presence in a complex, layered world.
Estes’s canvases are not just a study of perspective; they reveal the passage of time and the changing nature of urban spaces. His work is a meditation on man’s place in the world – often viewed from a distance – and in the picture itself. Today, Estes continues to create intricately detailed paintings that blend realism with subtle artistic alterations, inviting viewers to reflect on the relationship between vision, reality, and the fleeting moments of daily life.

About the artist

Born in 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois, Estes is known for his detailed urban and landscape scenes, often featuring reflective surfaces like glass and steel. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was influenced by realist painters such as Degas, Hopper, and Eakins. After moving to New York in 1956, Estes worked as a graphic artist, painting in his spare time until his first solo show in the mid-1960s launched his full-time career.
Estes’s paintings, even up close, are unnervingly photographic, with a sharpness of detail reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch painting. Unlike the Pop and Conceptual art movements of his time, his focus remained on sunlit cityscapes and landscapes based on his own photographs. His paintings manipulate light and clarity to reveal overlooked details and fleeting reflections. The Photo-Realist movement, which began in America in the mid-1960s, saw artists like Malcolm Morley, Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson, with Estes at the forefront, creating hyper-realistic works that transcend mere visual trickery.