Peter Mayer On Sale

Street art is a style created for city walls, subway trains and other public spaces. Sometimes it is commissioned, yet most often it is an individual statement of defiant free expression. Although mostly an urban style, street art can be found all over the world, including JR’s pasted portraits on the separation wall in Palestine, Invader’s playful ceramic tile mosaics in Paris and the provocative stencil and spray-paint works by Banksy in London.

The Philadelphia-based Cornbread — aka Darryl McCray — is considered the first modern graffiti artist. He began tagging his name around the city in the 1960s. Graffiti art later flourished in New York City in the 1970s. There, young artists used spray paint and markers to create tags and large-scale graphic works, with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring both developing their distinctive styles through the graffiti scene, which would evolve into street art. Artists such as Tracy 168 and Lady Pink pioneered the Wild Style of complex graffiti writing in the 1980s, pushing the movement forward.

Because of its unsanctioned, improvisational and frequently covert nature, street art involves a range of techniques and aesthetics. Some street artists use quick and effective stenciling, whereas others wheat-paste posters, commandeer video projectors or freehand draw elaborate illustrations and murals. Shepard Fairey made his mark with street art stickers before designing the iconic “Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

While the origins of street art are rooted in a strictly noncommercial creative act that confronted political issues, sexuality and more for a general audience of passersby, the art form has moved inside the galleries over the years. Today, just as Basquiat and Haring took their works from Manhattan’s Lower East Side alleyways into Soho galleries, artists including KAWS, Barry McGee and Osgemeos are in demand with collectors of fine art.

Find a collection of street art paintings, sculptures, prints and multiples and more on 1stDibs.

Animal paintings depict the beauty and power of nature in an elegant way that can complement any room. Interacting with animals has long captured the imagination and has been interpreted in diverse artistic media.

Some of the oldest works of art have included animals, such as a cave painting found in Indonesia dating back more than 45,500 years that shows a wild pig in red ocher pigment. Animals have continued to appear in every era and style of art, from realism to Pop art and everything in between.

Some paintings portray animals in their natural habitat, highlighting the majesty of wild creatures roaming the plains, forests and jungles. These paintings often feature deer, tigers, wild mustangs and other wildlife. Others focus on domestic animals such as dogs — pay a visit to the Museum of the Dog if you don’t believe us — as well as cats and how they interact with the world and their owners.

Picking the right animal painting for a room — as well as knowing how to arrange your new wall art — can take time. But, in the end, it will tastefully reflect your interests and passions. While an expansive landscape painting helps open up a small space, hanging a horse painting in a den shows a love for equine culture and can invite interesting conversation.

There is animal art to fit every collection on 1stDibs. Explore a wide selection of animal paintings and animal prints in a range of styles and designs to match any home or office.