Pearlstein, Philip

Philip Pearlstein, (born May 24, 1924, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died December 17, 2022, New York, New York), American painter whose portraits and images of nude models in studio settings reinvigorated the tradition of realist figure painting.

After graduating (B.F.A., 1949) from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where one of his classmates was the artist Andy Warhol, Pearlstein moved to New York to work and to study art history at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts (M.A., 1955). He taught at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn (1959–63) and at Brooklyn College (1963–88). Initially Pearlstein painted landscapes, but, beginning in the late 1950s, he began to craft his signature style: images of nude models (mostly females) casually posed in his art studio.

Pearlstein’s subject matter and style were a startling departure from Abstract Expressionism, then prevalent in New York City. His nudes offered a clinical and matter-of-fact approach to the human figure. He painted his models in poses that can at first appear awkward and ungainly, and often the composition of his canvases results in cropped-off heads or feet, a feature that emphasizes the two-dimensional nature of the paintings. The pointed lack of interaction between his models (when there are two) and their seeming indifference to the viewer allowed Pearlstein to approach the flesh of his figures as if it were landscape and neutralized much of the psychosexual aura usually ascribed to the nude subject. Particularly since the 1980s, Pearlstein enlivened the fields of monochromatic flesh with busy and brightly coloured studio props—including large patterned rugs, toys, a wide range of chairs, and curious bits of sculpture. The objects took on ever larger roles in the 21st century, often obscuring his nudes, hiding their faces (with masks in Two Models with Eames Lounge Chair, African Mask, Drum, and Carousel Ostrich [2018]), or drawing attention to certain parts of the nudes’ bodies (as in Two Models, Owl, Cardinal, Eagle Weathervane [2008]).

In 1982 Pearlstein was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and later served as its president (2003–06). His work was exhibited frequently in group and solo shows and was collected by such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.