A D Greer Oil Painting

Oklahoma-born artist A.D. Greer had a talent for filtering out the undesirable elements of his environment — pushing any ugliness or unpleasantness from his mind as he painted — to bring the beauty of the land to the forefront. His immersive paintings transport the viewer in an instant to a calm lakeshore or a quiet country road. 

Born Aubrey Dale Greer in Oklahoma City, the artist’s mother died when he was three. His family moved – by covered wagon — to Kansas where he grew up. Greer had a brief boxing career after graduating from St. John's Military Academy in Salina, but when the Great Depression brought the economy to a screeching halt, Greer took on whatever work he could get, including lumberjacking and setting spikes on the railroad.

Greer was able to supplement the income he earned as a laborer by doing decorative painting and murals on water towers, smokestacks and restaurant walls. He credited his artistic talents for keeping him flush throughout the greatest economic downturn in American history.

In 1934, Greer opened a studio in Oklahoma City where he painted stage curtains for theaters around the country. He painted with a realistic style that surpassed his counterparts in the business, and his curtains saw great demand. Hiring a group of traveling salesmen, Greer found modest success.

Greer continued to produce proper landscape paintings, and was eventually approached by his friend, American painter Leonard Woodruff, to allow the International Art Publishing Company of Detroit to publish two of his works for free. He agreed, and the works sold over a million copies. Greer saw no compensation for those sales, but his name and reputation spread all over the United States.

Greer continued to create vivid, beautiful landscapes and other types of paintings until he died in 1998.

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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.