Paintings & Sculptures just Real

'Lifelike' Paintings and Sculptures

Cool life like art pictures and sculptures from amazing artists. Many of these cool pictures are so realistic that it begs belief but seeing is believing so check these out...

1. Duane Hanson [sculptor, 1925 - 1996]
Duane Hanson (January 17, 1925–January 6, 1996) was an American artist based in South Florida, a sculptor known for his lifecast realistic works of people, cast in various materials, including polyester resin, fiberglass, Bondo and bronze. His work is often associated with the Pop Art movement, as well as hyperrealism.

Traveller - fibreglass & mixed media, 1988

The Traveller snoozes sunburned and hung over in a pile of cheap luggage waiting exhaustedly for a connecting flight home.

Queenie II - polychromed bronze, 1988

Queenie can be understood on one level as the personification of all those resigned-looking women who drag their bodies around in pursuit of the mess created by the rest of us. But we are made to confront the fact that such women, who are usually invisible and ignored, are not just faceless domestics.

Man on a bench

Duane Hanson’s hyper-real Old Man on a Bench is in a peculiarly modern predicament of drifting or simply existing, merely marking time on his way from birth to death.

Hanson’s work is represented in most major modern collections. His work has been shown internationally in many important exhibitions, including two solo retrospectives at New York City's Whitney Museum in 1978 and 1998, Five Artists and the Figure at the Whitney, a solo show at London's Saatchi Gallery, the 1995 Monte Carlo Sculpture Biennale, and Pop Art: 1955–1970 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia

2. Robert Bechtle [painter, 1932 - present]
Robert Bechtle, an American painter, born in San Francisco, California on May 14, 1932. He received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, in 1954 and 1958 respectively.

Bechtle has lived all his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, and his art is centered on scenes from everyday life.

‘61 pontiac - oils on canvas, 1968

Alameda gran torino - oils on canvas, 1974

3. Ron Mueck [sculptor, 1958 - present]

Mueck's early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, notably the film Labyrinth for which he also contributed the voice of Ludo, and the Jim Henson series The Storyteller.

Mueck moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. Although highly detailed, these props were usually designed to be photographed from one specific angle hiding the mess of construction seen from the other side. Mueck increasingly wanted to produce realistic sculptures which looked perfect from all angles.

In 1996 Mueck transitioned to fine art, collaborating with his mother-in-law, Paula Rego, to produce small figures as part of a tableau she was showing at the Hayward Gallery. Rego introduced him to Charles Saatchi who was immediately impressed and started to collect and commission work. This led to the piece which made Mueck's name, Dead Dad, being included in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy the following year. Dead Dad is a rather haunting silicone and mixed media sculpture of the corpse of Mueck's father reduced to about two thirds of its natural scale. It is the only work of Mueck's that uses his own hair for the finished product.

Mueck's sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly jarring visual images.

Untitled (big man) - pigmented polyester on resin, 2000

Mask II - sculpture, 2001

A Girl

In 2002 his sculpture Pregnant Woman was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for AU$800,000.

Pregnant Woman

Check out this coolest sculptures…

4. Raphaella Spence [painter, 1978 - present]
Raphaella was born in London 1978. Her family travelled to France where she spent the first eight years of her life. When they returned to London she continued her studies and her interest in art began to emerge. Her initial works were academic still life paintings. At age twelve her family moved definitively to Italy where she completed her studies at the St. Georges English School in Rome. Influenced by views of the Umbrian countryside, Spence turned toward the creation of the Photorealist landscape.

The poet - oils on canvas, 2004

Mirror of hope - oils on canvas, 2004

In 2000 she had her first solo exhibition in Italy, obtaining public recognition and that of the critics. In 2003 she had her first solo exhibition in the United States at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in New York followed by her first London solo exhibition at the Albemarle Gallery in 2004. Since then her paintings have been included in numerous group survey exhibitions in Europe and the USA.

Spence has received critical recognition for her work in widely circulated newspapers and magazines including The International Herald Tribune, The Spectator, Arte di Giorgio Mondadori, Panorama, La Repubblica, Corriere Della Sera and II Messaggero. The paintings of Raphaella Spence are included in private, public and corporate collections throughout the United States of America, Canada, England, Russia, Italy, Austria and Germany.


Visit the Raphaella Spence Website

5. Gottfried Helnwein [painter, 1948 - present]
Gottfried Helnwein (born October 8, 1948 in Vienna) is an Austrian-Irish fine artist, painter, photographer, installation and performance artist.

Untitled (modern sleep) - oils & acrylics on canvas, 2005

Epiphany - mixed media on canvas, 1996

Here is a video of some of his coolest paintings…


View the Gottfried Helnwein website

6. Denis Peterson [painter, 1944 - present]

Denis Peterson is an American artist of Armenian descent. He is a hyperrealist painter whose early photorealist works were exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum, and Max Hutchinson Gallery in New York.

Don’t shed no tears - acrylics on canvas, 2006

Dust to dust - acrylics & oils on canvas, 2006

Video of Denis Peterson paintings


View the Denis Peterson website

7. Dru Blair [airbrush expert, 1959 - present]
Dru Blair is an aviation artist whose realistic paintings dramatically portray subjects of aviation Art that salute Man's greatest technological triumphs.

Painting of tica - airbrush on unknown surface, 2007

Power - airbrush on unknown surface

His realistic Aviation Art paintings are often mistaken for airplane photos. While Dru's helicopter aviation art focus primarily on high technology of aviation art and military aircraft, Dru Blair has also been selected to portray many Star Trek novel covers, as well as such diverse subjects as the well known Budweiser Bullfrogs, and numerous magazine covers.

View the Dru Blair website

8. Ralph Goings [painter, 1928 - present]
Ralph Goings (May 9, 1928 in Corning, California) is an American painter closely associated with the Photorealism movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is best known for his highly detailed paintings of hamburger stands, pick-up trucks, and California banks, portrayed in a deliberately objective manner.

Cream pie - oils on canvas, 1979

Safeway interior - oils on canvas, 1974

Visit the Ralph Goings website

9. Peter Maier [painter, 1945 - present]
Peter Maier was born with "gasoline in his blood." Trained at an early age by his German father to be a precision machinist, Maier was always intrigued by the automobile and motorcycle. Maier went on to graduate from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, with degrees in Industrial Design and Fine Art. He was then hired by General Motors at age 20. After his return from Vietnam in 1969, Maier became Senior Automotive Designer for Chevrolet, Pontiac and Cadillac Motor Divisions.

Sand beach - waterborne automotive paint on unknown surface

Really red - waterborne automotive paint on unknown surface

Visit the Peter Maier website

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