Butler museum to premiere PHOTOREALISM MASTERWORK

Staff report

Youngstown

The first exhibition of a new and monumental work by renowned photorealist painter Peter Maier will be at the Butler Institute of American Art, 524 Wick Ave., beginning Wednesday and continuing through the summer.

“Horse-Power (Ben)” is a 9-by 111/2-foot masterwork that has never before been seen by the public.

A portrait of a Budweiser Clydesdale named Ben, it was painted with automotive paint on fabricated black aluminum panel, and was completed in 2011.

It will be on display in the Butler’s Dennison Gallery, on the main level of the museum.

To highlight the opening of the exhibition, a live Clydesdale horse will be brought to the museum from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday.

The 3-year-old horse named “Brodie” will be featured in the Butler’s circle driveway, courtesy of Shady Lane Clydesdales, owned by the Yeagley-Donaldson family of Greenford.

“Peter Maier is one of the greatest living realist painters using modern day technology,” said Louis Zona, director of the Butler. “He has extended the traditions of realist masters Vermeer and Rembrandt, and the American legends Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins and Edward Hopper

“His work stops us in our tracks, engaging the viewer in wonder and awe. We are honored to be the first museum to show this work — the largest portrait of a horse ever created in paint.”

Peter Maier, born in 1945 in Brooklyn, N.Y., is the son of immigrants. He grew up in a multi-ethnic environment, and from his earliest memories, art was his driving passion.

At age 18, Maier was selected to work on the sculpture for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

After serving in Vietnam, he went to work for General Motors during that company’s heyday, and his imprint can be found on a number of the automaker’s classic designs.

The young prodigy rose to the level of senior designer at GM, yet his passion for creating art drove him to the fine art world.

With his maverick approach, he forged a new pathway in realist painting.

Working from his studio in rural Buck Hill Falls, Pa., Maier has quietly revolutionized American Realism, blurring realism with reality, and making his larger-than-life paintings startling in their presence and vision.

Maier has been painting and selling works of art since 1980.

Recently, his work was the subject of two simultaneous solo exhibits at the Louis K. Meisel and the Bernaducci/Meisel galleries in Manhattan.

The Butler’s Trumbull branch in Howland is currently hosting an exhibition of photorealism, and two of Maier’s works are also included in that summer exhibition.