LOWELL
NESBITT
(1933-1993)
Lowell Nesbitt was born in Baltimore, Maryland
on October, 1933. He started to paint seriously in Washington
D.C., during the late 50's and continued to paint and make prints
until his death in 1993 at age 59.
The photographic sources of Nesbitt's work
have assumed less importance and his style has become almost
romantic. He depends much less upon photographs than do other
artists who use this source. Unlike younger Photo-Realist painters,
Nesbitt has always eschewed car lots, drive-ins, and other neo-Pop
subject matter, preferring Instead less time-bound, less sociological
images; images that confront traditional realism as well as the
viewers expectations.
Nesbitt has successfully tackled many subjects:
landscapes, nudes, ruins, caverns, and flowers. Nesbitt, who
has been painting giant flowers since 1964, removes their usual
context of devastating sentimentality so that their peculiar
beauty is again visible. Through such devices as close-up scale
and extreme isolation, Nesbitt forces us to break with sentimentalities.
The flowers are removed from three-dimensional space and from
traditional social contexts. The flowers existed long before
their execution as carefully pre-planned work/study collages
that stand as the ignition keys to his creativity.
Lowell Nesbitt exhibited frequently in
both the United States and Europe and is represented in many
public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago and
the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Nesbitt has emerged as one of the most
important American Realists. He has also attained an enviable
international reputation as an artist with a personal vision,
brilliant technical skill, and a viewpoint that is wholly contemporary.
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