Philip Pearlstein

Philip Pearlstein is an influentialAmerican painter best known for Modernist Realism nudes. Cited by critics as the preeminent figure painter of the 1960s to 2000s, he led a revival in realist art. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus with paintings in the collections of over 70 public art museums.

Biography

Philip M. Pearlstein was born on May 24, 1924 in Pittsburgh, PA, to David and Libby Kalser Pearlstein. During the Great Depression, his father sold chickens and eggs to support the family. As a child, his parents also supported his interest in art, sending him to Saturday morning classes at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art. In 1942, at the age of 18, two of his paintings won a national competition sponsored by Scholastic Magazine, and were reproduced in color in Life magazine.

In 1942, he enrolled at Carnegie Institute of Technology's art school, in Pittsburgh, where he painted two portraits of his parents now held by the Carnegie Museum of Art, but after one year he was drafted by the US Army to serve during World War II. He was initially assigned to the Training Aids Unit at Camp Blanding, Florida, where he produced charts, weapon assembly diagrams and signs. In this role, he learned printmaking and the screenprinting process, and subsequently was stationed in Italy making road signs. While in Italy, he took in as much renaissance art as was accessible in Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan, and also produced numerous drawings depicting life in the Army.