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Hi and welcome to Photorealism
50 years of hyperrealistic painting
at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
This is the largest retrospective of Photorealism
to have been held in Europe and the first
major retrospective ever held in the UK.
So it's a really fantastic exhibition
for us to have here in Birmingham.
Photorealism refers to a group of artists
that first started working in the 1960s in America.
The term Photorealism was coined by
the gallerist Louis K. Meisel
to refer to a group of artists who were openly
using photographs and copying them
to create their artwork.
Initially Photorealism was an rejection of
Abstract Expressionism which was
the dominant art form in America at the time.
Photorealism's critics labelled the movement
as intellectually empty and accused the artists
of being merely skilled copyiest
and not true artists at all.
However despite this criticism Photorealism
has endured and been taken up by
subsequent generations of artists.
The first generation of Photorealist artists
who were working in the 1960s and 1970s
were very interested in the inconsequential
and ordinary aspects of America life.
So in their work you see lots of images of
American towns and classic Americana
such as diners, the things that
you really associate with American culture.
Don Eddy was one of the first generation
of Photorealist artists and like many of them
he was very interested in depicting cars and motorbikes.
They also used photographs from their own
personal lives and you see their friends
and family depicted in their paintings.
Later generations of Photorealist artists
became more interested in the accuracy
of depicting a photograph on canvas
and ways that they could become
more and more adept at doing that.
The third generation of Photorealist artists
who were working in the 1990s and 2000s
have really harnessed digital technology
to help them with their paintings.
So you see them using computer generated stencils
and very high resolution digital cameras
to create photographs that they can use
for their eventual paintings.
Photorealism: 50 years of hyperrealistic painting
is on at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
until the 30th March 2014.