Richard McLean: Painting in Kodachrome

Oct 1, 2027 - Mar 26, 2028

Richard Thorpe McLean (American, 1934–2014), one of the original 13 artists of the 1960’s Photorealist movement, sought to capture in his paintings and drawings the accurate and detailed representation afforded by the camera. McLean—alongside other icons like Chuck Close, Richard Estes, and Audrey Flack—pioneered this new genre using everyday scenes and objects as subject matter, elevating the ordinary to the extraordinary. These artists transposed photographic materials such as photographs, Polaroids, 35 mm slides, and magazine images, into paintings, intentionally creating compositions to faithfully reproduce their original photographic media.

Each Photorealist had a preferred subject, and McLean became known for his focus on horses and the landscape, making him a vital artist, especially, to be presented at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM). The exhibition, Richard McLean: Painting in Kodachrome, will highlight his groundbreaking contribution as a masterful painter to both the Photorealist movement and contemporary sporting art with works spanning his career. A centerpiece of the exhibition will be the generous donation of Still Life with Prize Ribbon, 1979, to the NSLM given by Garth Greenan and Peter Kelly in 2025, as well as Incident at Turlock, 1997, and the last equine subject that McLean ever painted, Whistlejacket, II, 2011.

Thank you to Garth Greenan for his generous support of this exhibition.

Richard McLean (American, 1934–2014)
Still Life with Prize Ribbon, 1979
oil on canvas, 50 x 45 inches
National Sporting Library & Museum,
Gift of Garth Greenan and Peter Kelly, 2025