Estes is one of America's leading photorealist painters and this large format HB does justice to the scale of his work. It is the first major book to be published on Estes since 1993. Much of the work from 2004-05 is published here for the first time. Estes is one of the leading painters of the New York urban landscape yet his hyper-crisp, people-less streetscapes have more to do with minimalism and realism than with traditional landscape painting. The book includes his well-known paintings of New York street scenes along with the recent and less familiar landscapes and still-lifes. American art scholar John Wilmerding takes a fresh look at this significant realist painter. The author covers the artist's themes and techniques and the influence of masters such as Vermeer, Canaletto, Frederic Church, Edward Hopper, and Walker Evans. The book is divided into sections on themes of Estes's work, such as: Early Paintings, New York Streetscapes, Foreign Cities, Reflections, Landscapes, Portraits, and Still Lifes. A detailed chronology and list of exhibitions and public collections are included.
John Wilmerding is the Christopher Binyon Sarofim Professor of American Art at Princeton University and visiting Curator in the Department of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.