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Marie Sarni was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1931. She holds a BA from Massachusetts School of Art and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of Oregon. She was married in 1958 to writer Norman Meinke. Sarni studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, Elmer Bischoff and Wally Hedrick. She was a member and moved in the circles of the most significant Bay Area Beat Generation painters. Sarni was named in Art News in 1972 as an “Outstanding Painter Living Outside of New York City.” While a student at Massachusetts School of Art, she was heavily influenced by Willem de Kooning and decided to focus her art on abstract expressionism and refers to herself as a “veteran abstract expressionist.” For over 20 years, Sarni enjoyed a close friendship with Willem and Elaine de Kooning, who both respected her work and opinion. She holds many distinctions and prizes, including being sponsored by SF Art Institute to represent the United States in the 1962 Prix de Rome. Sarni was positively reviewed in ARTnews, Artforum, New York Herald Tribune, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, Park-East (New York), West Art and Art Week, and cited in Art and Sexual Politics.

Through her active career, Sarni has had numerous solo and group exhibits. Recognized and lauded within the art community and by critics, her work is in Willem and Elaine de Kooning, the Merker and Foss private collections, and is installed in Greenville Art Museum, and the University of Oregon and University of Montana Art Museum. She is retired and lives in the Monterey Bay area.

Painting is an art form that has spanned innumerable cultures, with artists using the medium to tell stories, explore and communicate ideas and express themselves. To bring abstract, landscape and still-life paintings into your home is to celebrate and share in the long tradition of this discipline.

When we look at paintings, particularly those that originated in the past, we learn about history, other cultures and countries of the world. Like every other work of art, paintings — whether they are contemporary creations or works that were made during the 19th century — can often help us clearly see and understand the world around us in a meaningful and interesting way.

Cave walls were the canvases for what were arguably the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict natural scenery through art. Portrait paintings and drawings, which, along with sculpture, were how someone’s appearance was recorded prior to the advent of photography, are at least as old as Ancient Egypt. In the Netherlands, landscapes were a major theme for painters as early as the 1500s. Later, artists in Greece, Rome and elsewhere created vast wall paintings to decorate stately homes, churches and tombs. Today, creating a wall of art is a wonderful way to enhance your space, showcase beautiful pieces and tie an interior design together.

No matter your preference, whether you favor Post-Impressionist paintings, animal paintings, Surrealism, Pop art or another movement or specific period, arranging art on a blank wall allows you to evoke emotions in a room while also showing off your tastes and interests. A symmetrical wall arrangement may comprise a grid of four to six pieces or, for an odd number of works, a horizontal row. Asymmetrical arrangements, which may be small clusters of art or large, salon-style gallery walls, have a more collected and eclectic feel. Download the 1stDibs app, which includes a handy “View on Wall” feature that allows you to see how a particular artwork will look on a particular wall, and read about how to arrange wall art. And if you’re searching for the perfect palette for your interior design project, what better place to turn than to the art world’s masters of color?

On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive collection of paintings and other fine art for your home or office. Browse abstract paintings, portrait paintings, paintings by popular artists and more today.