Artist

Paul Caranicas

born Athens, Greece 1946
Born
Athens, Greece
Active in
  • New York, New York, United States
Biography

A graduate of Georgetown University, the Corcoran School of Art, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and the Art Students League, Caranicas brings formidable technical skill to haunting architectural subject matter. Though not a Photorealist, Caranicas works from photographs in painting the abandoned shells of World War II defensive bunkers along the French and U.S. coastlines and in the Channel Islands. In the rigorous linearity of the blocklike concrete shapes, Caranicas sees beautiful architectural structures that for him have political and intellectual, as well as aesthetic, implications. Caranicas sets the defense bunkers into landscapes purified to the point of surrealism, and in his most recent work, pieces together sheets of paper at geometrically irregular angles to further distort the appearance of reality.

Virginia M. Mecklenburg Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1987)

Works by this artist (10 items)

Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Hip Hop, 1993, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1994.23.7, © 1993, Earlie Hudnall, Jr.
Hip Hop
Date1993
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Looking Out, 1991, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1994.23.6, © 1991, Earlie Hudnall, Jr.
Looking Out
Date1991
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Street Champion, 1986, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1994.23.5, © 1986, Earlie Hudnall, Jr.
Street Champion
Date1986
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Earlie Hudnall, Jr., The Guardian, 1990, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1994.23.4, © 1990, Earlie Hudnall, Jr.
The Guardian
Date1990
gelatin silver print
Not on view

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      Meet the artist Paul Caranicas as he discusses his work Fort Tilden II