Central Savings

Artist Richard Estes (American, born 1932)

Date1975

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 36 x 48 inches (91.44 x 121.92 cm)
Framed: 38 1/2 x 50 1/2 inches (97.79 x 128.27 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Friends of Art

Object numberF75-13

Signedin reverse, left of center: "ESTES"

On View

Not on view

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

DescriptionView onto 34th Street, NYC, looking through glass, into empty eating establishment with rows of red counter tops and red and chrome stools. Buildings acress street and in background. Detailed, multiple images and reflections merg and contradict each other. Blurred shadow of moving figure, at lower right, "CENTRAL SAVINGS" seen in reverse, above and left of center.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Allan Stone Gallery, New York, May 3-May 30, 1977.
Richard Estes: The Urban Landscape, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, May 31-August 6, 1978; The Toledo Museum of Art, September 10-October 22, 1978; Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, November 9-December 31, 1978; Hirshorn Museum, Washington D.C., January 25-April, 1979, no. 19.
Realism/Photo-Realism, Philbrook Arts Center, Tulsa, October 5-November 23, 1980, unnumbered.
A Century of the American Dream, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan, November 23, 2000-January 28, 2001; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe, Japan, February 7, 2001-March 25, 2001, no. II-26.
Richard Estes’ Realism, Portland Museum of Art, ME, May 22-September 7, 2014; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., October 10, 2014-February 8, 2015, no. 12.

Gallery Label

Photorealist Richard Estes uses photographs as his source material. Instead of copying one photograph in detail, he creates a composite of several that he has taken of the same location, combining and making adjustments in the composition. In Central Savings, the emphasis is on visual complexities of form, color, light, perspective and reflection. While the human eye is constantly shifting its focus for distant and close vision, the focus in Central Savings is uniformly clear and precise throughout. Spatial relationships are complicated by the use of multiple reflections, and certain areas of the painting may be seen as abstract arrangements of color and form. Estes states, "The abstract quality of reality is far more exciting to me than most of the abstract painting I see."

Provenance

With Allan Stone Gallery, New York, by 1975;
Purchased from Allan Stone Gallery, New York, by the Friends of Art, Kansas City, MO, by 1975.

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1975.

Published References

Donald Hoffman, “Friends Give Estes Canvas to Gallery,” The Kansas City Star (November 14, 1975).
“Annual Purchase” The Kansas City Star, (November 16, 1975), (repro.).
Ellen Goheen, Friends of Art Collection (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1975), (repro.).
Linda Chase, “Photo Realism: Post-Modernist Illusionism” Art International, Vol. 20, No. 3-4, (March/April, 1976): 19, 20, (repro.).
Jean Lipman and Helen M. Franc, Bright Stars, American Painting and Sculpture Since 1776 (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., In., 1976), 207, 173, (repro.).
Charles Guliano, “Estes Let’s the Public Eat Cake” The Real Paper, (July 8, 1978).
Kenneth Baker, “Very Like A Formalist, Richard Estes: Realism with a Difference” The Boston Phoenix, (July 11, 1978): 8.
John Arthur and John Canaday, Richard Estes: The Urban Landscape, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts and New York Graphic Society, 1978, 19, 62, (repro.).
John Arthur, Realism/Photo-Realism, exh. cat. (Tulsa: Philbrook Art Center, 1980), 72, 101, (repro.).
Peter Conrad, The Art of the City (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 1984), 313, 314, (repro.).
“Sinn und Leistung: Von der Vielschtigkeit der Arbeit” Management Wissen, No. 12, (December 1985): 90-91, (repro.).
Louis K. Meisel, Richard Estes: The Complete Paintings 1966-1985 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986), no. 62, 67.
Jerome Klinkowitz, The New American Novel of Manners (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), cover.
Diana Crane, The Transformation of the Avant-Garde, The New York Art World, 1940-85 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 20, 95, (repro.).
Donald Goddard, American Paintings (New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., 1990), 299, (repro.).
Hubert Beck, Ellert and Richter Verlag, Edward Hopper (Hamburg, 1992), 44, (repro.).
Marco Livingtsone, Duane Hanson (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1994), 58.
Shūji Takahashi, A Century of the American Dream, ehx. cat. (Nagoya: Aichi kan bijutsukan, 2000), 54.
Don Eddy, Norman L. Kleeblatt, Maurice Berger, Debra Bricker Balken, Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976 (New York: Jewish Museum, 2008).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (Kansas City, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 224, (repro.).
Patterson Sims, Richard Estes’ Realism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 13, (repro.), 70, 71, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.