Realism was arguably the first explicitly anti-institutional, nonconformist art movement. From its origins with Courbet in the mid 19^th century, the pursuit of the “real” captivated artists. In the 20^th century, even as abstraction, Cubism, Surrealism, Constructivism and Dada emerged, a host of artists remained committed to Realism. After WWI, artists returned to figuration, withdrawing from modernist experimentation in favor of realistic, often Neo-Classical depictions of the body. This interwar “Retour à l’ordre” has traditionally been characterized as conservative and retardataire. In this course we will explore the many different realist strategies artists adopted throughout the 20^th century, from Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) in Germany, the “querelle du realisme” in the mid 1930s Paris, Socialist Realism in Russia, as well as the muralists of the New Deal and the Ashcan School in the United States. In the postwar period, we will examine the magical realism of Renato Guttuso in Italy, the Socialist Realist critique of André Fougeron, Sidney Janis’s 1962 The New Realists exhibition, Pierre Restany’s grouping of Yves Klein, Arman, and others as part of “Nouveau Réalisme” (New Realism), Gerhard Richter’s formulation of a “Capitalist Realism” in West Germany and the photorealism of Estes and Close. Throughout, we will consider the politics and aesthetics of realism as means to engage with the everyday and communicate with a wide audience.