Pearlstein, Philip, 1924–, American painter, b. Pittsburgh. He paints monumental nude figures directly from life with a verisimilitude that captures sagging and sallow flesh, works that recall photorealism in their precise imagery and smooth surfaces. Pearlstein's style, which has changed little since the 1960s, is aggressively literal and purposefully unromantic. His subjects, which have become more complicated over the years, are depersonalized through arbitrary cropping and harsh lighting. Pearlstein's paintings have been exhibited widely and examples are in numerous major collections.
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