Realist Exhibit Reaffirms Value in Human Life

Realist artists and an art historian talk about classical realist art on the occasion of an exhibit by Patricia Watwood.

Michael is a jazz and gospel singer in Watwood’s church choir. He has struggled with homelessness and other issues, yet “has a noble soul,” says Watwood in her painting description. The painting is named “Fate,” for “what will his fate be?” Courtesy of Patricia Watwood

NEW YORK—Patricia Watwood and two other artists came together at the Forbes Galleries, where she currently has  an exhibition through June 9, to espouse the virtues of contemporary classical realist art while searching for clarity about the oft-misunderstood field.

“Our work is not usually ironic, overly self-reflective, morbid, or nihilistic,” she explained. “It’s based in traditional methods, it embraces beauty as an emotional and rhetorical language, it uses naturalistic representation, and it is built on the twin cores of Western art—nature and design.”