Tom Blackwell

Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York

Gallery Camino Real, Taos (acquired from the above in 1997)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

New York, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New and Recent Works by the Photorealists, 1993

The Flint Institute, The Purloined Image, March - May 1993, p. 30, illustrated in color

Nassau County Museum of Art, Art After Art, September 1994 - Janurary 1995

Louis K. Meisel, Photorealism At the Millennium, vol. III, New York, 2002, cover and pl. 127, illustrated in color

“A painting is a physical manifestation of thought. That’s painting. It goes through the hands and eyes and brain. It makes thought palpable…perceivable.” - Tom Blackwell

Known as one of the founders and leading painters of photorealism from the late 21st century until his recent death in 2020, Tom Blackwell portrayed incredibly dynamic and unique perspectives of the world as he saw it. Fixated on the effect of light and shadow in a fleeting moment, the artist worked in great detail for months, painting compositions that developed a distinctive, multilayered viewpoint. He echoes the painters of Renaissance due to his intense focus on the effect of light in his compositions, as well as the vivacity of his brushwork utilizing a wet-on-wet painterly technique. Blackwell was initially celebrated in the 1970s for his paintings of motorcycles; meticulously crafted, highlighting the reflection of the light off of the metal, these works create vivid images of the exact conditions at which he saw the object. 

Moving on from this study, the artist became preoccupied with observing storefront windows, creating an image that immediately allows for the viewer to place his or her self in the scene. Blackwell himself described these images as “quite a complex situation. [The viewer is] both seeing something in the interior, a reflection and all the way through to the other window, which shows pedestrians walking by.” The present work, Odalisque Express, reflects an advancement in the skill of his work, framing multiple layers of imagery in one that does not reveal its complexity at first glance. Catching the viewer's attention initially is the interior of the store window displaying a mirage of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Grand Odalisque which was incorporated in a logo for the Express clothing chain. Commenting on the appropriation of a 19th century painting with a commercialized contemporary company, Blackwell highlights the fusion of fine arts with industry. This composition is the epitome of the artist’s experimentation with reality and the fixed elements within a store window that “watch” reality continue everyday.