Charles Bell

Charles Bell (June 11, 1935 – April 1, 1995) was an American photorealist who created large scale still lifes.

Artistic career Despite a lifelong interest in art, Bell never received any formal art training.

His primary subject matter was vintage toys, pinball machines, gumball machines, and dolls and action figures. By recreating Classical myths like the Judgement of Paris with action figures, Bell sought to bring pictorial majesty and wonder to the mundane. Bell's work, created in his New York loft studio on West Broadway, is noted not only for the glass-like surface of his works, done largely in oil, but also for their significant scale. In 1995 he was included in the exhibition 'American Masters', curated by Michael McKenzie for the Museu d'Arte Moderne in São Paulo, along with Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol, two artists Bell admired. For the exhibit, Bell created a silkscreen print titled "The Viking" largely regarded as a masterpiece of the medium which required 51 plates, 11 proofings and 10 months to produce. Bell was featured in several solo exhibitions at the Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York and the Hokin/Kaufman Gallery in Chicago. Bell lived in the San Francisco Bay Area after leaving the navy, and began his artistic activity in San Francisco. He moved to New York City in 1967 and set up his own studio. They are buried alongside each other at Diamond Head Memorial Park, Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii, U.S.

Legacy After Bell's death, Louis K. Meisel of the Louis K. Meisel Gallery became the owner of all intellectual property rights to the body of art created by Charles Bell.

Bell's works are housed in the collections of the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, Texas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, among others.

According to art critic and historian, Henry Geldzaler, Bell's best works were in the pinball series. The New York Times quoted Geldzaler as saying, "...the artist's greatest achievement – visually, technically and technologically."

Books Henry Geldzahler. Charles Bell: The Complete Works, 1970–1990, 1991