We still take pleasure in comprehending their narrative, historical, and allegorical content. It is often hard to know. Realism isn't talked about much in the influential circles of the contemporary artworld. The notion that representational painting is pass or reactionary is so ingrained as to be an artworld cliche. Major museums tend to avoid contemporary American Realism as do all but a handful of galleries.
Textbooks omit it and the media almost always ignore it.
Government agencies categorically deny grants for Realist art and university fine-art programs have abandoned teaching it. One would think American Realism didn't even exist. Yet, despite its decimation Realist painting has not disappeared. As a watercolorist he carried the legacy of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent into the twentieth century. And he is no less talented with tempera and dry brush.