Philip Pearlstein Painted the Naked Truth

Samantha Baskind | Smithsonian Magazine | 9th January 2023

Abstract expressionism in post-war New York indoctrinated the art world that the picture is a flat plane, without depth. Pearlstein’s realist paintings – with illusionistic depth – which he began in the 1960’s, thus came as a shock. Often, he painted nudes, seeing the body as “a kind of complex still-life object”. These were works concerned with form and perspective. And that is the calling card of realism, a style that Pearlstein revitalized in American art. A video (27 min) is here.