"SUPERREALIST PAINTING & SCULPTURE" par Christine LINDEY. Editions Orbis Publishing Limited, Londres. 1980. Imprimé en Italie. Petit in-4 carré, couverture toilée grise sous jaquette photo (état d'usage). 160 pages. Texte en anglais, illustré de très nombreuses reproductions photographiques couleurs et noir & blanc, in-texte et hors texte, d'œuvres d'artistes tels : John Baeder, Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Tom Blackwell, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Duane Hanson, Noel Mahaffey, John Salt...

 

"Superrealism is exactly what it says it is - highly representational art which portrays its subjects in such detail that they appear unnaturally real - super-real. The pictures and sculptures make the viewer do a double-take - at first glance they appear to be photographs or stationary figures, and as such perhaps unremarkable; the realization that they are actually paintings or sculptures comes with a sense of shock. The very ordinariness of their subject matter is startling. Mundane, predominantly urban and decidedly contemporary, their depictions of shoppers, shop windows, neon lights, wrecked cars and fast-food diners are meticulously rendered from photographs or are actual life casts. Presenting reality exactly as it is captured by the mechanical eye, theirs is an illusionism untempered by fantasy which questions all our preconceptions about art. ln this lucid analysis of the Superrealist phenomenon, Christine Lindey traces its origins in the United States, studies its European variants and considers its paradoxical relationship with the photograph. ln drawing together an incisive and comprehensive account of the movement, she places it firmly within the context of mainstream twentieth-century art. The wealth of illustrations, many in full colour, of the sculptures, the paintings - some reproduced actual size, others in both their unfinished and finished states to show methods of working - as well as the artists' own source material, conveys the immediate and extraordinary appeal of one of the most exciting art movements of our time."

 

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