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Gus HEINZE

Gus HEINZE

Made in the U.S.A.

1994

acrylic on gesso panel
43 x 72 inches
GHZ 138

Summary

Gus Heinze (born May 1, 1926 in Bremen, Germany) is an American photorealist painter. In 1970 he began his career in Bondville, Vermont; with many of his paintings from this period depicting parts of automobiles and motorcycles in close-up.

In 1978 Heinze relocated to Marin County, California, and began exploring more diverse subjects. He increasingly moved toward storefront-window and city scenes, in a style that he calls "abstract realism," where the subject is real but the point of view and composition give the painting an abstract quality — resulting in a kind of reverse trompe-l'œil. As his works can appear half-real, half-abstract, it is not surprising that the artist himself describes abstract realism as "a total oxymoron."

In addition to his urban subjects, Heinze has also painted dilapidated farm equipment such as tractors and water pumps, and old trains and locomotive engines; in Exactitude: Hyperrealist Art Today, John Russell Taylor writes that "Heinze is fascinated by decaying machinery left behind as the detritus of the Industrial Revolution. The forms are powerful, if inscrutable."[4] He has also done series of paintings depicting rocky cliffsides, vineyard grapes, and streams; much of his subject matter is characterized by complex reflections off glass or water, intricate foliage, and deep background blacks with saturated colors in the foreground.