Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972-2008Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972-2008 is an important overview of the work and methods of this British-born 'realist' panoramic painter (b. 1939) who was given the MacArthur Fellowship genius award in 2009. Though primarily based in New York City, Downes has travelled widely and has created a significant number of landscape paintings on site including the harbour of Portland, Maine, and the Donald Judd structures in Marfa, Texas. Downes's panoramic paintings, which he developed by studying 17th-century Dutch panoramic landscape painting possess a unique balance between realism and abstraction, timelessness and history. Painted from observation, they are not "snapshots" of a scene recreated in the studio; rather, they are chronicles of the human experience-- records of social history as it evolves. The book also features a wide-ranging interview between the artist and Terrie Sultan, director of Parrish Art Museum |
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abstract artist and Betty Betty Cuningham Gallery camera Chinati Foundation Concrete Building Interior Courtesy the artist Cross Bronx Expressway Dam at Fairfield depicted Ditches Donald Judd Downes painted Downes's paintings Ductwork in G essay Estivating Snow Plows Fairfield Porter Farm Buildings figure finished Four Spots Galveston Harlem River Head in Empirical High Island High Island Oil Houston inches Collection inches Courtesy inches Private Collection Island Oil Field Joel Shapiro Kennebec River Klaus Ottmann landscape painting look Maine Marfa Mario Naves Museum of Art nineteenth-century North from Washington Oil on canvas oil sketches Onsite Paintings painter panoramic paper Parrish Art Museum plein-air Rackstraw Downes Razor-Wire Fence Realism Sanford Schwartz Sarah Rothenberg scene Searsmont Skowhegan Snug Harbor studio subway summer Terrie Sultan Tower with Estivating Turning the Head University of Houston Untenanted Space Ventilation Tower View North Washington Bridge West Texas winter World Trade Center York Drawing