Albert Roca
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Board, Oil
1990s Modern Animal Paintings
Oil, Board
1990s Modern Landscape Paintings
Board, Oil
1990s Modern Figurative Paintings
Oil, Board
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Board, Oil
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Board, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Books
Paper
People Also Browsed
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
19th Century Victorian Figurative Paintings
Oil
1970s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Cardboard
1970s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Pastel, Wax Crayon
Late 19th Century Victorian Landscape Paintings
Oil
Early 2000s Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Board
1980s Modern Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Illustration Board
2010s Realist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Panel
Antique Late 19th Century British Colonial Candle Lamps
Brass
20th Century Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Watercolor
Antique Mid-19th Century French Napoleon III Paintings
Canvas, Giltwood
20th Century European Other Paintings
Other
Antique Mid-19th Century English Early Victorian Books
Paper
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings
Oil Pastel, Oil
1940s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Board
Recent Sales
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
1990s Modern Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
A Close Look at modern Art
The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.
Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.
The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.
Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.
Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.
Finding the Right portrait-paintings for You
An elegant and sophisticated decorative touch in any living space, portrait paintings have remained popular throughout the years and are widely loved pieces of art for display in many homes today.
Portrait paintings are at least as old as ancient Egypt, where realistic, lifelike depictions of the recently deceased — commonly known as “mummy portraits” — were painted on wooden panels and affixed to mummies as part of the burial tradition.
For centuries, painters have used portraiture as a means of expressing a subject’s nobility, societal status and authority. Portraits were given as gifts in Renaissance Europe, and a portrait artist might have been commissioned to help mark a significant occasion such as a wedding or a promotion to high office. Prior to the advent of photography, which eventually replaced painted portraits as a quicker and more efficient way of capturing a person’s essence, the subject of a portrait had to sit for hours until the painter had finished. And during the 18th century in particular, if an artist commissioned for a portrait struggled with how to adequately memorialize and capture a subject’s likeness, sometimes a portrait painting wasn’t completed for up to a year.
Whether it’s part of the gallery-style approach to your living-room or dining-room walls or merely inspiration as you devise an eye-grabbing color scheme in your home, a portrait painting is a timeless decorative object for any interior. A landscape painting or sculpture might give you the kind of insight into a specific region of the world or a different culture that you can ascertain only through art. Similarly, when you take the time to learn about the subject of a portrait painting that you bring into your home — the sitter’s history, the relationship between the sitter and the artist should one exist, the story of how the portrait came to be — that work can become intensely personal in addition to its place as an object for an art-hungry corner of your apartment or house.
On 1stDibs, visit a vast collection of famous portrait paintings or works by emerging artists. Search by medium to find the right portrait paintings for your home in oil paint, synthetic resin paint and more. Find portrait paintings in a variety of styles, too, including contemporary, Impressionist and Pop art, or search by artist to find unique works created by painters such as Mark Beard, Steve Kaufman and Montse Valdés.