'Schoelkopf Gallery, another tried-and-true presence at the fair, displays new work by Richard Estes (b. 1932), the pioneer Photorealist. Estes’s Escalator at Penn Station, painted this year, shows he still has plenty of magic in him and tagging him with the realism of a photograph has never been quite right. Photographs, first of all, aren’t the final word on truth and accuracy since there’s so much artifice in the medium. And “realist” doesn’t fit Estes, either.
“Telescopist” describes Estes, who treats the everyday with the technique of a prober and the impulse of science fiction. He treats the escalator at Penn Station’s new Moynihan Train Hall as a shiny, new, sleek passage to a bustling but faraway world. The gleam of metal and clarity of mechanical lines contrast, too, with construction outside and a world that’s never finished.
Estes has been painting escalators off and on since the early ’70s, when the art dealer Allan Stone cannily discovered him. He’s 91 now but seems very modern. The picture’s not big, at 18 by 24 inches, but the scale’s very satisfying. It’s $325,000.' BRIAN ALLEN
Read the full article here: National Review | The Art Show
