Richard McLean

American, born 1934

SchoolPhotorealism

BiographyBorn: 1934, Hoquiam, Washington

Richard McLean's paintings re-awaken us to the dormant joy of observation. McLean concerns himself with apparently sentimental subjects to achieve a consummate brutalism. McLean derives his Kodachromes from the deadly black & white photos of national horse monthly magazines dedicated to breeding and showmanship, with illustrations of handsome horses, their owners, trainers, stables and equipage.

Horses are not the love of McLean's life: it's the photos he adores and --with their posed formalization of reality-- fanatically transmits. Sharp "Hollywoodian" colors create and heighten the estrangement and such curiously modernist devices as flattening the foreground and the background enhance the compositional images by exaggeratedly bringing them to the fore.

Despite the cool seriality of his work, McLean introduces a psychological element; the more accurate the rendering of the photo and the more exaggerated the realism, the more imaginative the paintings are. McLean and his fellow realists seem to have an almost styleless style. They seem to be able to take their paintings on without the burden of personal style. It is the selection of subjects and individual philosophy that creates a presence of more than mere technical mastery.

It was primarily only after 1972, at the Kassel Documenta Fair, that Richard McLean became well known. He began exhibiting his work in San Francisco in 1957, after studying painting at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California.

At the end of the 1960s, realism became quite fashionable in the United States. As this was McLean's primary style, he participated in many exhibitions such as 22 Realists in 1970 at the Whitney Museum in New York; Radical Realism, in 1971 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; Sharp Focus Realism in 1972 in New York; and many others both in the United States and overseas.

McLean's most successful theme involved horses and their accompanying figures, such as racehorses and their jockeys, military horses, and farm horses. In a majority of cases, the animal plays a major role at the expense of the figures or surrounding landscapes. McLean considers himself a still-life painter despite his subjects being animals and men.

Education:
1962 Mills College, Oakland, CA; M.F.A.
1958 California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA; B.F.A.

Solo Exhibitions:
1957 Lucien Labaudt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1963 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
1964 Berkeley Gallery, Berkeley, CA
1965 Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
1966 Berkeley Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1967 University of Omaha, Omaha, NE
1968 Berkeley Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1971 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1973 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1975 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1976 Galerie de Gestlo, Hamburg, West Germany
1976 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1978 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1981 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1983 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1986 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1989 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY

Group Exhibitions:
1957 "California Sculptors Annual," Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA
1957 "Northern California Painters Annual," Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA
1960 "Watercolor/Graphics Annual," Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
1961 "SFAA Annual," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1962 Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO
1962 San Francisco State College, San Francisco, CA
1962 "SFAA Annual," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1963 "12th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition," Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
1963 Berkeley Gallery, Berkeley, CA
1964 "13th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition," Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
1964 "Max 24," Purdue University, Lafayette, IN
1964 "Winter Invitational," California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
1965 Mills College, Oakland, CA
1966 "Kingsley Annual," E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA
1966-68 "East Bay Realists," San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; traveling exhibition
1967 "30th Anniversary Exhibition," Richmond Art Center, CA
1967 "80 Contemporaries in the West," University of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ
1967 "Four Painters," California State College, Hayward, CA
1969 "A Decade of Accomplishment: American Drawings and Prints of the 1960's," Bell Telephone Company, Chicago, IL
1969 Berkeley Gallery, Berkeley, CA
1969 "California Painters," Northern University of Illinois, DeKalb, IL
1969 "Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture 1969," Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
1969 Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago, IL
1969 University of Nevada, Reno, NV
1969 "Views of Sacramento," Artist's Contemporary Gallery, Sacramento, CA
1970 "Beyond the Actual - Contemporary California Painting," Pioneer Museum and Haggin Gallery, Stockton, CA
1970 "Directly Seen - New Realism in California," Newport Harbor Art Museum, Balboa, CA
1970 "Expo `70," Osaka, Japan
1970 "People Painters," University of California, Davis, CA
1970 "The Cool Realists," Jack Glenn Gallery, Corona del Mar, CA
1970 The Highway, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
1970 "Twenty-Two Realists," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1970 "West Coast `70," E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA
1971 "Neue Amerikanische Realisten," Galerie de Gestlo, Hamburg, West Germany
1971 "New Realism," State University College, Potsdam, NY
1971 "Radical Realism," Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
1971-73 "36 California Painters," Michael Walls Gallery, San Francisco, CA; traveling exhibition to New Zealand and Australia
1972 "32 Realists," Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH
1972 "California Representation: Eight Painters in Documenta 5," Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1972 "Documenta 5," Neue Galerie and Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, West Germany
1972 "Documenta and No-Documenta Realists," Galerie de Gestlo, Hamburg, West Germany
1972 "L'Hyperrealisme Americains," Galerie de 4 Mouvements, Paris, France
1972 "Realism Now," Katonah Gallery, Katonah, NY
1972 "Sharp-Focus Realism," Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY
1972 "The Realist Revival," New York Cultural Center, New York, NY
1972 "The State of California Painting," Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
1972 "Working in California," Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY
1972-73 "Amerikanischer Fotorealismus," Wurttenbergischer Kunstverein; Frankfurt Kunstverein; Kunst und Museumsverein Wuppertal, West Germany
1973 "Amerikansk Realism," Lunds Konsthall, Lunds, Sweden
1973 "Decade," Civic Arts Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
1973 "East Coast/West Coast/New Realism," San Jose State University, San Jose, CA
1973 "Ekstrem Realisme," Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, West Germany
1973 "Hyperrealisme," Galerie Isy Brachot, Brussels, Belgium
1973 "Hyperrealistes Americains," Galerie Arditti, Paris, France
1973 "Iperrealisti Americani," Galeria Medusa, Rome, Italy
1973 "Kunst Nach Wirklichkeit ein Neuer Realismus in Amerika und in Europe," Kunstverein, Hannover, West Germany
1973 "Mit Kamera, Pinsel und Spritzpistole," Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen, West Germany
1973 "Photo Realism 1973," Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1973 "Photo-Realisme," Serpentine Gallery, London, England
1973 "Separate Realities," Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1973 "The Super-Realist Vision," De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
1973-74 "Hyperrealisme: Maitres Americains et Europeens," Galerie Isy Brachot, Brussels, Belgium
1973-78 "The Stuart M. Speiser Collection of Photo-Realism," Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY; traveling to: Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, NY; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; University of Colorado Art Museum, Boulder, CO; University of Texas Art Museum, Austin, TX; Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, TX; Brooks Memorial Museum, Memphis, TN; Krannert Museum, Champaign, IL; University of Kansas Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS; Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, WI; Edwin A. Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS; Tampa Bay Art Center, Tampa, FL; Rice University, Sewall Art Gallery, Houston, TX; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
1974 "Aspects of the Figure," Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
1974 "California Climate," Root Art Center, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
1974 "Contemporary American Paintings from the Lewis Collection," Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
1974 "Hyperrealistes Americains, Realistes Europeens," Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris, France; Museum Boymans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
1974 "Living American Artists and The Figure," Pennsylvania State University Museum of Art, University Park, PA
1974 "New/Photo Realism," Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
1974 "The Horse in Art," Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1974 "Tokyo Biennale `74," Tokyo, Japan
1974 "Watercolors and Drawings - American Realists," Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1975 "American Realism," Reed College, Portland, OR
1975 "New Realist Painting in California," John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1975 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1975 "The New Realism: Rip-off or Reality?" Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS
1975-76 "Super Realism," Baltimore Museum, Baltimore, MD
1976 "Amerikanske Realister," Galerie Arnesen, Copenhagen, Denmark
1976 "Cows," Queens Museum, Flushing, NY
1976 "Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA;
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
1976 "Photo-Realist Watercolors," Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, Purchase, NY
1976 "Works on Paper," Galerie de Gestlo, Hamburg, West Germany
1976-78 " Aspects of Realism," Rothman's of Pall Mall Canada Ltd.,
Stratford, Ontario; traveling to: Vancouver Centennial Museum, Vancouver; Glenbow Alberta Institute, Calgary, Alberta; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Winnepeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta; Memorial University Art Gallery, St. John's, Newfoundland; Confederation Art Gallery, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Musee d'Art Contemporain, Montreal, Quebec; Dalhousie University Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Windsor Art Gallery, Windsor, Ontario; London Art Gallery and McIntosh Memorial Art Gallery, London, Ontario; Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario
1976-78 "Realist's Prints," traveling exhibition organized by the Australian Council, North Sydney; touring Australian museums
1977 "30 Years of American Art: 1945-1975, Selections from the Permanent Collection," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1977 "A Comparative Study of Nineteenth Century California, Paintings and Contemporary California Realism," California State University, Chico, CA
1977 "American Paintings and Drawings," John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1977 "Masters of Watercolor," O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1977 "New Realism: Modern Art Form," Boise Gallery of Art, Boise, ID
1977-78 "Illusion and Reality," Australian National Gallery, Canberra; traveling to: Western Australia Art Gallery, Perth;
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide;
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Tasmanian Museum of Art Gallery, Hobart
1978-79 "American Drawing," Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN
1979 "America in the 70's as Depicted by Artists in the Richard Brown Baker Collection," Meadowbrook Art Gallery, Oakland University, Rochester, MI
1979-80 "Reflections of Realism," Museum of Albuquerque, NM
1980 "Photo-Realist Painting in California: A Survey," Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1980 "The Figurative Tradition and The Whitney Museum of American Art: Painting and Sculpture from the Permanent Collection," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1980 "The Morton G. Neumann Family Collection, National Gallery of Art," Washington, DC
1981 "Animals in American Art: 1880's - 1980's," Nassau County Museum of Fine Arts, Roslyn, NY
1981 "Changes: Art in America 1881-1981," Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
1981 Proctor Art Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
1981 "Real, Really Real, Super Real: Directions in Contemporary Realism," San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX
1981 "The Image in American Painting and Sculpture: 1950-1980," Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH
1981-83 "Contemporary American Realism Since 1960," Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; traveling exhibition
1982 "Northern California Art of the Sixties," De Saisset Museum, University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA
1982 "Northern California Realist Painters," Redding Museum, Redding, CA
1982 Sawhill Gallery, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
1982 "Self-Portraits," Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York, NY
1982 "The West As Art," Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
1983 "American Super Realism from the Morton G. Neumann Family Collection," Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, IL
1983 "American Superrealism From the Morton G. Neumann Collection," Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, IL
1983 "Contemporary American Realism," Foster Goldstrom Gallery, Dallas, TX
1983 "Contemporary Images: Watercolor 1983," University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
1983 "Directions in Bay Area Painting: A Survey of Three Decades:
1940's - 1960's," Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis, CA
1983 "Drawings by Fifty California Artists," Modernism, San Francisco, CA
1983 Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, MO
1983 "On Paper," Jeremy Stone Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1983 "Realism Now," Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan
1983 "Thanking the Muse," Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, MO
1983 "The American Photorealists," Fischer Fine Art, London, England
1983 "The Horse Show," Freidus Gallery, New York, NY
1983 "Watercolor in America," Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT
1983-85 "Assignment: Aviation-The Stuart M. Speiser Photo-Realist Collection," Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition:
Anchorage Historical & Fine Arts Museum, AK, 1/1-1/31/83; Denver Museum of Natural History, CO, 7/23-9/4; Maryland Science Center, Baltimore, MD, 9/24-11/6; Columbus Museum of Arts & Sciences, GA, 11/26/83-1/8/84; Neville Public Museum, Greenbay, WI, 1/28-3/11; The Dane G. Hanson Memorial Museum, Logan, KS, 3/31-5/13; Longview Museum & Art Center, TX, 6/2-7/15; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, CO 8/4-9/16; Springfield Art Museum, MO, 10/6-11/18; Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, TN, 12/8/84-3/24/85; Historical & Creative Arts Center, Lufkin, TX, 4/13-5/26; Amarillo Art Center, TX, 6/15-7/28; Santa Fe Community College Art Gallery, Gainesville, FL, 10/19-12/1
1983-85 "West Coast Realism," Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach,
CA; traveling exhibition
1984 "America Seen: Contemporary American Artists View America," Adams Middleton Gallery, Dallas, TX
1984 "Animals! Animals! Animals!," Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford, CT
1984 Galerie Jean-Pierre Lavignes, Paris, France
1984 "San Francisco Bay Area Painting," Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, NE
1985 "American Realism," William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1985 "American Realism: The Precise Image," Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; traveling exhibition in Japan
1985 "Animals: Contemporary Visions," Robert L. Kidd Galleries, Birmingham, MI
1985 "Focus on Realism: Selections from the Collection of Glenn C. Janss," Boise Gallery of Art, Boise, ID
1985 "Fortissimo! Thirty Years from the Richard Brown Baker Collection of Contemporary Art," Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; traveling to: San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR
1985 "Photorealist Watercolors: Robert Bechtle, Ralph Goings, Richard McLean," Acme Art, San Francisco, CA
1985 "Realism: Contemporary Americans," Hooks-Epstein Galleries, Houston, TX
1985-87 "American Realism: Twentieth-Century Drawings and Watercolors
from the Glenn C. Janss Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art," San Francisco, CA; traveling exhibition
1986-87 "The Sturman Collection: Twentieth-Century Works On Paper, Tucson Museum of Art," Tucson, AZ
1987 "Fifty-First National Midyear Exhibition," Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
1987 "Mainstream America: The Collection of Phil Desind," Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
1987 "Realism: The New Generation," R.H. Love Modern, Chicago, IL
1987 "The Hot Centre: Contemporary Art Selected by Ivan Karp," Norton Center for the Arts, Centre College, Danville, KY
1988 "American Realism: Twentieth Century Drawings and Watercolors The Glenn C. Janss Collection," Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID
1988 "Selections from The Ellen and Jerome Westheimer Collection,"
Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK
1988 "Spanish Watercolors: Robert Bechtle and Richard McLean," Wiegand Gallery, Belmont, CA
1988 "Tortue is O.K.," Tortue Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1988 "Works On Paper," John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1990 "Amerikansk Fotoreslism," Art Now Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden,
October 20 - November 25
1990 "California A-Z And Return," Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
1990 "Styles, Strands & Sequences: American Realist Paintings & Drawings, 1912-1990 From the Philip Desind Collection," University Gallery, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
1991 "Photorealism: The Early Years," Isidore Ducasse Fine Arts, New York, NY
1991 "In Sharp Focus: Super-Realism," Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn, NY, April 15 - July 7, catalog
1991-92 "Photo-Realism: Revisited," Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, FL,
Nov. 22, 1991 - Jan. 19, 1992
1996 "Paper Work", Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY, Feb. 3 - 24
1997 "Photorealism", Jaffe Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, FL, Jan. 9-31
1997 "Photorealists", Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA, October 2 - November

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