Look Again: Encountering the Art of Otto Duecker

August 12, 2026 - January 23, 2027

Reception | October 1, 2026

Look Again: Encountering the Art of Otto Duecker presents more than 100 paintings of stunning hyperrealism. Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany before his family settled in Oklahoma, Duecker came home to earn his BFA right here at OSU — and the world of art has never been quite the same. From the early portraits he created just after graduating to his masterful eye-fooling paintings of famous individuals, from his innovative cut-outs of folks he encountered on the street to his alarmingly real depictions of clothing, from his gravity-defying "floating fruit" to his meticulously depicted "notes," this exhibition looks back on Duecker's six-decade career of delighting, surprising, and astounding viewers.

He first received national recognition in the 1970s for his Drifters series of stark, life-size cutouts of street people, and his restless curiosity never stopped driving him to new territory. His trompe l'oeil portraits of iconic figures don't merely capture a likeness —he represents photographs themselves as objects, complete with the tonalities of aged paper, the texture of tape, and the subtle drama of shadows cast on crumbling walls. Working always with traditional oil paint and brushes in a classical application, Duecker achieved effects that seem to defy the limits of the human hand.
 
Look Again is an invitation to slow down, lean in, and discover — again and again — just how extraordinary the ordinary can be.