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The New Reality: The Frontier of Realism in the 21st Century is the first traveling museum show of this century to not only look at the state of
Realism painting around the world, but to also compare those artworks with their historical predecessors.
Fifty-six artists are represented with sixty-five paintings from the United States, Canada, The Netherlands, Korea, Russia, France,
Iceland, Romania, Norway, and Finland in this juried show organized by the International Guild of Realism.
The exhibition looks at such media as oil, acrylic, egg tempera, graphite and colored pencil to give
viewers a snapshot of how Realism artists are approaching their art form today.
Each artist was asked to identify one historical painting that can be used by museum attendees to compare and
contrast today's work with the pioneers of this art technique. The artists cited such predecessors as Ingres,
Da Vinci, Dürer, Vermeer, Harnett, Constable, Memling and Dali as starting points for their current work as they explored still life,
landscape, figurative and even trompe l'oeil art forms. In some cases, the contrast between the old and the new is startling;
in other cases, one can almost see the apprentice soaking up the Old Master's techniques for modern visuals.
Each of the sixty-five contemporary paintings can be directly compared with an historic Realism painting.
Each wall label features an image of a related historic painting. |
