Photorealism is the art world’s version of a magic trick. You’re meant to stand in front of the canvas and say, “Wait – that’s not a photo?” At its core, it’s about using photographs as source material, then reproducing them in paint, pencil or other media with such obsessive precision that they read as high‑res photography from a distance. Read our list of the best examples of photorealism for inspiration.
The movement arrived in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when the art world was drunk on Abstract Expressionism and basking in the afterglow of Pop Art. While Pollock was flinging paint and Warhol was silk‑screening soup cans, artists like Chuck Close, Richard Estes and Ralph Goings decided to lean back into representation… but filtered through the cold eye of the camera lens.
This grew largely out of the US, especially New York and California, with painters meticulously rebuilding street scenes, chrome‑heavy cars, diners and still lifes from photographs, often at much larger scales than the originals. Most art critics sneered, but the sheer technical prowess was undeniable.
