Panorama
Chapter 1
Hubert de Lartigue: “La perle”, 2010, 60×60 cm (24×24 ins), acrylic on canvas
© Hubert de Lartigue, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
Sixty Years!
What painting movement can claim a lifespan of sixty years and still be relevant today? Arte Povera? Free Figuration? Cobra? Fluxus? … all disappeared after five to ten years of existence.
No, the answer to this question is hyperrealism. Born in the mid-1960s, it has seen one, two, and then three generations of artists perpetuate the movement.
A few explanations are necessary to explain this longevity:
Globalization
Originally strictly American, hyperrealism has developed across five continents, with Europe becoming, notably since the 2000s, the main source of active artists.
​Themes
Hyperrealism borrowed the iconography of everyday life from Pop Art. It celebrates the banal image and trivializes the cultural image.
The first hyperrealists, who are referred to as photorealists, favored subjects related to consumer society, all highlighting the American way of life.
They often omitted human emotion, political value, and narrative elements. The photorealist style was particularly tight, precise, and highly mechanical, with an emphasis on banal everyday imagery.
Pedro Campos: “Candies and Cornflakes”, 114×162 cm (45×64 ins), oil on canvas
© Pedro Campos, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
It is not surprising that many painters are fascinated by automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, factories, and cityscapes.
But since then, the nature of the subjects covered has expanded considerably, particularly since the 2000s, to more personal themes, sometimes taking on romantic, political, or erotic overtones.
Contemporary hyperrealism, although photographic in essence, often involves a softer and much more complex approach to the subject depicted, presenting it as a living and tangible object. Everything in the work of these artists can be classified according to the traditional
categories taught in Fine Arts schools: still life, nude, portraits, landscapes, scenes from everyday life, etc.
Lorena Kloosterboer: “Tempus ad Requiem XVI”, 28×28 cm (11×11 ins), oil on canvas
© Lorena Kloosterboer, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
Technological Evolution
While hyperrealist techniques utilize traditional, even academic, painting tools (canvas, brush, pencil, easel, etc.), they also rely on photographic, computer, digital, and artificial intelligence technologies, which allow the movement to be multiplied and expanded to new imensions, following the evolution of these tools.
We see some artists organizing workshops, courses, and workshops, perpetuating the movement and democratizing their techniques.
Agnès Lefèvre: “Feathers‘ abstraction”, 100×100 cm (39×39 ins), oil on canvas
© Agnès Lefevre, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
The Opening Toward Feminization
Due to their initially “mechanical” biases, the first hyperrealists turned out to be masculine (with the exception, which proves the rule, of Audrey Flack). Since the 2000s, a number of female painters have become major artists in the hyperrealist movement.
