Sleight of Hand: Painting and Illusion, October 2, 2014 - February 22, 2015, New Wing, Second Floor, Central Skylight and South Metro A Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Real and HyperReal, January 30, 2010 - August 1, 2010, New Wing, First Floor, Gibson Family and Plaza Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Collection Highlights, November 2, 2002 - September 12, 2004, New Wing, Gibson Family Gallery and Plaza Gallery, First Floor, San José Museum of Art.

Collecting Our Thoughts: The Community Responds to Art in the Permanent Collection, June 23, 2001 - September 23, 2001, New Wing, Metro A, Skylight and South Galleries, Second Floor, San José Museum of Art.

John Register: A Retrospective, January 16 – May 9, 1999, First Floor, New Wing, San José Museum of Art.

Sleight of Hand (2014 - 2015)

John Register had the keen sensibility of a realist, although Desert Restaurant, eerily devoid of people, is a fabrication, a psychological metaphor crafted by the artist’s mind. Register evoked feelings of silence and alienation that recall the work of the early twentieth-century painter Edward Hopper. Although Register was flattered by this comparison, he pointed out that “with Hopper, you witness someone else’s isolation; in my pictures, I think you, the viewer, become the isolated one.”

Register modeled this interior view after a restaurant he visited in Passaic, New Jersey. He replaced the waterfalls outside the large picture windows with a vast desert landscape scattered with sagebrush. The artist considered the desert a metaphor for his life’s journey: "I like desert imagery and the stillness it implies…. In Desert Restaurant, I wanted to show the difference between the shelter inside and the unforgiving desert outside. You can die in the desert. A café is refuge…the viewer sees a safe environment, while outside is an environment that would kill him."

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Real and HyperReal San Jose Museum of Art , 1/30/2010 - 8/1/2010

• Image Dimensions: 50 x 70 in. (127 x 177.8 cm)

This object has the following bibliographic references:

• Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection. Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection San Jose Museum of Art. San Jose, CA, 2004
  Page Number: 182-183

This object is a member of the following portfolios: