Abstract illusionism, a name coined by art historian and critic Barbara Rose in 1967. [1] Louis K. Meisel independently coined the term to define an artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the mid-1970s.
The works were generally derivative of expressionistic, and hard-edge abstract painting styles, with the added elements of perspective, artificial light sources, and simulated cast shadows to achieve the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Abstract illusionism differed from traditional Trompe-l'œil (fool the eye) art in that the pictorial space seemed to project in front of, or away from, the canvas surface, as opposed to receding into the picture plane as in traditional painting. Primarily, though, these were abstract paintings, as opposed to the realism of trompe l'oeil. By the early 1980s, many of the visual devices that originated in Abstract Illusionism were appropriated into the commercial world and served a wide variety of applications in graphic design, fabric design, and the unlikely decoration of recreational vehicles. This proliferation of commercialism in Abstract Illusionist imagery eventually led to the disintegration of the original artistic movement, as a number of the original artists abandoned working in the style. Pre-1970 forerunners and practitioners of the style include Ronald Davis, Allan D'Arcangelo, and Al Held.
Artists associated with the 1970s Abstract Illusionism movement, as documented through museum exhibitions and art literature, include James Havard, Jack Lembeck, Joe Doyle (artist), Tony King, Jack Reilly, George D. Green, and Michael B. Gallagher John Mikel Thomas. The first major museum exhibitions to survey Abstract Illusionism were "Abstract Illusionism," Paul Mellon Arts Center, Wallingford, CT, 1977; "Seven New York Artists (Abstract Illusionism)", Sewall Art Gallery, Rice University, Houston, TX, 1977; "Breaking the Picture Plane," Tomasulo Gallery, Union College, Cranford, NJ; and "The Reality of Illusion", curated by Donald Brewer of the University of Southern California, which originated in 1979 at the Denver Art Museum and traveled to the Oakland Museum, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, the University of Southern California, and the Honolulu Museum of Art. A number of exhibitions were organized and assembled by the leading dealer of the genre, Louis K. Meisel who presented important artists in solo and group exhibitions throughout the seventies at 141 Prince Street in SoHo.
In 1972 the English critic Bryan Robertson also used the term “Abstract Illusionism” to characterize sculptures by Kenneth Draper, Nigel Hall and William Tucker and paintings by Paul Huxley and Bridget Riley. [2]
 | This art movement–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This modern art-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
John Frederick Peto was an American trompe-l'œil painter who was long forgotten until his paintings were rediscovered along with those of fellow trompe-l'œil artist William Harnett.
Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions.
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural or human-made.
Trompe-l'œil is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. Trompe l'œil, which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving painted objects or spaces as real. Forced perspective is a related illusion in architecture.
Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be used broadly to describe artworks in many different media, it is also used to refer specifically to a group of paintings and painters of the American art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
John Haberle (1856–1933) was an American painter in the trompe-l'œil style. His still lifes of ordinary objects are painted in such a way that the painting can be mistaken for the objects themselves. He is considered one of the three major figures—together with William Harnett and John F. Peto—practicing this form of still life painting in the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that has developed since the early 1970s. Carole Feuerman is the forerunner in the hyperrealism movement along with Duane Hanson and John De Andrea.
Jack Reilly is an American artist known for his complex shaped canvas paintings. His work is widely exhibited and included in public and private collections internationally.
Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts or Gysbrechts was a Flemish painter who was active in the Spanish Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden in the second half of the seventeenth century. He was a court painter to the Danish royal family. He specialised in trompe-l'œil still lifes, an artistic genre which uses visual tricks to give viewers the illusion that they are not looking at a painting but rather at real three-dimensional objects. He also created many vanitas still lifes.
Arthur Green was one of the original Hairy Who members from Chicago, a group of students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who exhibited together in the 1960s and 1970s and made representational art with a slight surrealist touch. He was also a member of the University of Waterloo's faculty for over 30 years. His painting style mixes pop-art motifs with surrealist tendencies. His upbringing in Chicago and its vicinity may have influenced him, from the accessibility of the Art Institute of Chicago to the architecture of Louis Sullivan, but he also may have been influenced by advertisements from the 1940s and 1950s that had undertones of sexuality. His paintings drew from American popular imagery, but complicated it, often using the full spectrum of vibrant colors and combining trompe l'oeil effects to play with the viewer's sense of balance.
Ronald "Ron" Davis is an American painter whose work is associated with geometric abstraction, abstract illusionism, lyrical abstraction, hard-edge painting, shaped canvas painting, color field painting, and 3D computer graphics. He is a veteran of nearly seventy solo exhibitions and hundreds of group exhibitions.
Henri Cadiou was a French realist painter and lithographer, best known for his work in trompe-l'œil paintings. He is credited with being a founder of the l’école de la réalité in 1949. The movement; a reaction against abstract art, became relevant at the Salon de Mai of 1960, where Cadiou exhibited paintings that were almost photorealistic. These paintings caused a stir in the artistic community.
John Pugh is an American artist known for creating large trompe-l'œil wall murals giving the illusion of a three-dimensional scene behind the wall. Pugh has been creating his murals since the late 1970s. He attended California State University Chico, receiving his BA in 1983 and the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003. He has received over 250 public and private commissions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Barbados, Japan, Taiwan, and New Zealand. He currently lives and works in Truckee, California. His particular style of trompe-l'œil painting has been called "Narrative Illusionism."
Michael B. Gallagher is an American painter whose work is associated with Abstract Illusionism.
Charles Hinman born 1932 in Syracuse, New York is an Abstract Minimalist painter, notable for creating three-dimensional shaped canvas paintings in the mid-1960s.
Lorena Kloosterboer is a Dutch-Argentine artist who paints using trompe-l'œil and photorealistic styles, often creating the illusion of three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. She is best known for her hyperrealist still life paintings of idiosyncratic compositions made of glass and porcelain pieces. Her paintings have been exhibited and awarded in several countries worldwide. As a sculptor Kloosterboer has created a number of bronze pieces which are displayed in public in the city of Wassenaar. Also, the artist has published several books on painting techniques.
Richard Shaw is an American ceramicist and professor known for his trompe-l'œil style. A term often associated with paintings, referring to the illusion that a two-dimensional surface is three-dimensional. In Shaw's work, it refers to his replication of everyday objects in porcelain. He then glazes these components and groups them in unexpected and even jarring combinations. Interested in how objects can reflect a person or identity, Shaw poses questions regarding the relationship between appearances and reality.
Joe Doyle was an American artist. He is one of the original painters in the style, abstract illusionism, of the 1970s and has since evolved his style using computerized technologies to create Digital art.
Mervyn John Williams is a New Zealand artist. He was an early exponent of Op art in New Zealand in the 1960s–70s. In 1990 he originated a style of illusionary abstract painting based on chiaroscuro, creating the impression of three-dimensional forms and textures on a flat canvas. Since 2009 he has used digital techniques in returning to an Op art style. Williams is almost unique amongst his contemporaries in New Zealand art for having embraced abstraction at the start of his career and exclusively throughout. His work is held in all major New Zealand public collections. A monograph by Edward Hanfling was published by Ron Sang in 2014 coinciding with a survey exhibition.
Pitcher and Violin is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Georges Braque, created in 1909–10. It was made at the beginning of the development of what would be analytical cubism. The painting is held the Kunstmuseum, in Basel.