Philip Martin Pearlstein (May 24, 1924 – December 17, 2022) was an American painter renowned as a leading figure in the revival of Modernist Realism and a preeminent figure painter from the 1960s to the 2000s. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he showed artistic promise early, winning national prizes in high school and studying at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where he was a classmate of Andy Warhol.

After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and studying art history at New York University (M.A., 1955), Pearlstein began his career in New York City. He initially painted abstract expressionist landscapes but shifted to figurative art in the late 1950s, focusing on nude models in studio settings with a rigorous, almost clinical objectivity. His work, which challenged the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, emphasized the human body as a "human fact" rather than an idealized form.

Pearlstein taught at Pratt Institute and Brooklyn College (1963–1988), where he became Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He received major honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1971), a Fulbright Hays Fellowship, and election to the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His works are held in major collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

He was married to fellow artist Dorothy Cantor Pearlstein for over 60 years; she died in 2018. Pearlstein died in New York City at the age of 98. His legacy endures through his precise, intellectually driven paintings that redefined figurative art in the 20th century.