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Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

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Medium: Paper
Shape 10 (2018) - Abstract shape, minimalist gestural, black & white on paper
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Shape 10 (2018) by Ryan Park of Shapes Only Abstract, nonobjective, gestural, geometric art, acrylic on 300GSM archival paper. Abstract shape innovated by the artist. Neutral pal...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Acrylic, Archival Paper

Cosmic Web - Quantun Form
Located in New York, NY
Cosmology "I am fascinated by abstract theories and hypothetical ideas in physics, especially in cosmology, which is the science of the universe’s origin, its evolution and its even...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Pen

Larry Zox "Teal Top" Drawing, 1966
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Larry Zox (1937-2006) was a central figure in the evolution of 20th century abstraction in America. Raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Zox studied at the University of Oklahoma and went on to work under the tutelage of modernist Georg Grosz at the Des Moines Art Centre. Zox moved to New York City and established his reputation by the mid 1960's. His studio was located on 20th Street and he was surrounded and inspired by a melting pot of jazz artists, bikers, and boxers. Zox was one of the most successful practitioners of hard-edge or geometric abstraction and not surprisingly was championed by Frank Stella, amongst others. By the mid 1960's, Zox arrived at his most recognized style, utilizing hard-edge shapes in bold colors to create geometric patterns, which were often realized on raw canvas. Zox's hard-edge geometric creations from the late 1960's and early 1970's are arguably the most recognizable works from his oeuvre. Fittingly he had a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1973, that focused on such work. Today, numerous museums including the Whitney, the MoMA, the Tate and the Metropolitan all have examples of his work from this era in their permanent collections. While Zox is not directly associated with the Op Art movement, many of his works by nature of their patterns and colors create visual illusions in dimensionality. In "Mosaic" the kelly green band that intersect the composition helps give the overall work an appearance of a slanted stair. Frequently the artist seems to be inviting the viewer to find pattern within the work. In "Mosaic" we have both areas of synergy and dissonance. Can you find them? Questions about this piece? Contact us! Teal Top...
Category

1960s Abstract Geometric Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media

The road to the sun - line drawing figure and red circle
Located in Fort Lee, NJ
Interior design paintings. The work was done with ink and watercolor in black and red color on watercolor paper 300g. The work is 11 by 15 inches in size. This is the "Many thoughts...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Watercolor

Carnivore
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Carnivore Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / Minimalism and C...
Category

2010s Abstract Geometric Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Acrylic, Gouache, Magazine Paper

Fig. 8 BASE VERDE. From The Dibujar el Tiempo Series
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Fig. 8 BASE VERDE, 2025 by Rodrigo Spinel From The Dibujar el Tiempo Series Indian ink on 350g Strathmore Bristol paper Frame size: 58.4 H x 42.9 W x 3 D cm. Image size: 46 H x 30.5...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, India Ink

Fig. 8 BASE MORADO. From The Dibujar el Tiempo Series
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Fig. 8 BASE MORADO, 2025 by Rodrigo Spinel From The Dibujar el Tiempo Series Indian ink on 350g Strathmore Bristol paper Frame size: 58.4 H x 42.9 W x 3 D cm. Image size: 46 H x 30....
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, India Ink

OriginalSet-the Way of Seeing-Meeting Cezanne-Studies Masters-British Artist
Located in London, GB
This set of drawings included Two Studies of Cezanne's paintings in National Gallery and The Courtauld Gallery , London where Shizico Yi learned her craft in drawings from old master...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper

'Lily in Charcoal no.3' abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal no.3' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal No.3' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash....
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper

Abstract Composition
Located in Astoria, NY
Elfi Schuselka (Austrian, b. 1940), Abstract Composition, Mixed Media on Paper with three-dimensional collage elements, signed in pencil lower right, unframed. 23" H x 30" W. Provena...
Category

Late 20th Century Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media, Watercolor, Pencil, Graphite

Fig. 8 BASE NARANJA. From The Dibujar el Tiempo Series
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Fig. 8 BASE NARANJA, 2025 by Rodrigo Spinel From The Dibujar el Tiempo Series Indian ink on 350g Strathmore Bristol paper Frame size: 58.4 H x 42.9 W x 3 D cm. Image size: 46 H x 30...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, India Ink

Pre-War Abstraction - Modernism - Tan Bronze Tope - Nonrepresentational
Located in Miami, FL
Pioneering female abstract artist Elsie Driggs paints stylized abstract organic forms in a warm palette of orange browns and tope. She merges abstraction with some figuration. A structured face composed of lines and tone emerges from an orange background. It's 1939, and even though Driggs is not well known, she is preceding many of the marquee names of abstraction by a decade. Although under the radar, this is a major work and is titled on the back stretcher is " Egyptian Gothic." It features the artist's inventiveness with her fine pencil lines incorporated in flat washes of color and collage elements. Signed lower right and inscribed on frame verso with title, artist and the date of 1939. Provenance, Christie's, Freemans. Framed under glass.. Elsie Driggs (1898 – July 12, 1992 in New York City) was an American painter known for her contributions to Precisionism, America's one indigenous modern-art movement before Abstract Expressionism, and for her later floral and figurative watercolors, pastels, and oils. She was the only female participant in the Precisionist movement, which in the 1920s and 1930s took a Cubist-inspired approach to painting the skyscrapers and factories that had come to define the new American landscape. Her works are in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Houston Museum of the Fine Arts, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Pennsylvania, and the Columbus Museum of Art, among others. She was married to the American abstract artist Lee Gatch. Career Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Driggs grew up in New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City, in a family that was supportive of her artistic interests. After a summer spent painting with her sister in New Mexico in her late teens, she felt she had found her life's calling. At twenty, she enrolled in classes at the Art Students League of New York, where she studied under George Luks and Maurice Sterne, both of whom were charismatic, inspirational figures in her early life. She also attended the evening criticism classes held at the home of painter John Sloan. Driggs spent fourteen months in Europe from late 1922 to early 1924, drawing and studying Italian art. There she met Leo Stein, first in Paris and later in Florence, who became an important intellectual influence, and who urged her to study Cézanne. He also introduced her to the works of Piero della Francesca, the Renaissance artist for whom she felt throughout her life the greatest admiration.[1] Driggs eventually settled in New York City, where she found representation with the progressive Charles Daniel Gallery.[2] (Advised that the old-fashioned and misogynistic Daniel would be unlikely to take on a woman artist, she signed the works she left for his consideration simply "Driggs" and waited to meet him in person until he had expressed his eagerness to include her in his gallery.)[3] In sympathy with those artists Daniel represented who were part of the burgeoning Precisionist movement, such as Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, George Ault, Niles Spencer, and Preston Dickinson, she too painted "the modern landscape of factories, bridges, and skyscrapers with geometric precision and almost abstract spareness."Impressionism and academic or Ashcan realism represented the past, in Driggs' view, and she intended to be resolutely modern. She was an attractive and engaging woman, but her demeanor belied a strong ambition and a clear sense of what it would take to make her mark in the New York art world. Driggs was part of the pre-eminent first group of Precisionist painters, including Demuth and Sheeler, who exhibited at the Daniel Gallery in the 1920s. Although a later group of Precisionist painters, including Louis Lozowick, Ralston Crawford and others, came on the American Art scene during the 1930s, Driggs felt that the style came to an end with the 1929 stock market crash.[5] In 1926 she painted her most famous work, Pittsburgh, a dark and brooding picture now in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which depicts the gargantuan smokestacks of the Jones & Laughlin steel mills in Pittsburgh. Its focus is an overpowering mass of black and gray smokestacks, thick piping, and crisscrossing wires with only clouds of smoke to relieve the severity of the image, yet it was an image in which she found an ironic beauty. She called the picture "my El Greco" and expressed surprise that viewers in later years interpreted the painting as a work of social criticism. Like the other Precisionists (e.g., Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Louis Lozowick, Stefan Hirsch), she was concerned with applying modernist techniques to renderings of the new industrial and urban landscape, not in commenting on potential dangers the overly mechanized modern world of 1920s America might present. If anything, Precisionism, like Futurism, was a celebration of man-made energy and technology. One year later, she painted Blast Furnaces, in a similar vein. As noted above, Piero della Francesca's mural depicting "The Story of the True Cross" in Arezzo, with its tubular, static and frozen forms was the major influence on Driggs' "Pittsburgh" (it may have been the major influence for "Blast Furnaces" as well).[7] After Pittsburgh, Driggs' most acclaimed work was probably Queensborough Bridge...
Category

1930s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Pencil

Untitled-009 Abstraction in Reds mixed media painting by John Von Wicht
Located in Hudson, NY
One of a group of over 100 works personally selected by the artist and gifted to a close personal friend in 1969, this work was never matted, framed, glued, taped or exposed to light...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media

"Barns" Watercolor Mid-20th Century Modern Abstract Realism Excellent Provenance
Located in New York, NY
"Barns" Watercolor Mid-20th Century Modern Abstract Realism Excellent Provenance Arthur Dove (1880-1946) "Barns" 5 x 7 inches Watercolor on paper, 19...
Category

1940s American Modern Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Does not see - line drawing figure with red gloves
Located in Fort Lee, NJ
Interior design paintings. Part of the triptych “Does not see. Does not hear. Does not speak”. The artwork was done with watercolor on watercolor paper 360g. The works are 14 by 11 i...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Pensando en ti, Marzo 13, Drawing
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Pensando en ti, Marzo 13, 2014 by Celso Castro Watercolor on archival paper Image size: 39.2 H in. x 28 in. W Unframed ____________ Undefined by medium, Celso Castro’s works each ca...
Category

1990s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Watercolor

Assemblage of inflatable paint islands silkscreen printing on paper, tapestry
Located in Carballo, ES
Work belonging to the latest exhibition of the Manolo Eirin contemporary art gallery in A Coruña, Spain. The work is a drawing made by the artist for the exhibition using the assemb...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Printer's Ink, Archival Paper

"Delivered and Discarded (positives) #3" Dimensional wall-hanging sculpture
Located in Philadelphia, PA
"Delivered and Discarded (positives) #3" is an original wall-hanging piece by Yoonmi Nam. This piece is made from the flattening out packing boxes that the artist traces to depict t...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Found Objects, Sumi Ink, Synthetic Paper

series "Non-standard configurations", 42x30 cm, acrylic on paper
Located in Yerevan, AM
series "Non-standard configurations", 42x30 cm, acrylic on paper The work is sold without a frame and mat
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

Kyle Andrew Szpyrka - Lotus, Drawing 2015
Located in Greenwich, CT
Sutra, a Sanskrit word meaning “thread”, is a word or small group of words that summarize an entire complex web of ideas, truths, wisdoms, or teachings all woven together into a sing...
Category

2010s Surrealist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil, Graphite

Les Voiles by Léopold Survage - Abstract watercolour, Landscape, Modern
Located in London, GB
Les Voiles by Léopold Survage (1987-1968) Watercolour on paper 23 x 38 cm (9 x 15 inches) Monogrammed, stamped and dated lower right Executed in 1945 Provenance Private collection, ...
Category

1940s Surrealist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Black White Abstraction 022 Painting by Anastasia Vasilyeva, 2020
Located in Zofingen, AG
Anastasia Vasilyeva - Black white abstraction 022 (2020) Painting on high quality, acid free, high density paper. Conceptual minimalist abstract painting designed in calligraphic st...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Minimalist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

Soul Flowers 61 The Plan, Spiral, Staircase, Black and White Flower Pattern
Located in Kent, CT
A surreal scene with spirals, floral shapes and meticulously rendered black and white patterns. This drawing is entirely hand-drawn using only pen and paper. Framed in a solid black...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Pen

Bauhaus Inspired Black & White Drawing "Composition #36" by Artist Paarshav Shah
Located in Chicago, IL
Bauhaus inspire, black and white, Abstract Geometric, architectural, deconstructionist drawing by Chicago artist and architect Paarshav Shah. Stamped signature P/S, lower right. art...
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21st Century and Contemporary Bauhaus Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Paper

Abstract Watercolor Painting, 'Design for Sculpture', C. 2000 by David Ruth
Located in Oakland, CA
This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...
Category

Early 2000s Abstract Expressionist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Neoxpressionist / Organic painting, Soil on Hahnemühle paper, Brown.
Located in Carballo, ES
This series by the multidisciplinary artist TUSET (1997, A Coruña, Spain) titled "Land paintings (or what painting is not)", is a series of paintings that the artist had buried in th...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Arte Povera Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Organic Material, Paper, Varnish

Disegno figurativo impressionista italiano del XIX secolo firmato
Located in Florence, IT
Questo schizzo, inchiostro su carta, è firmato in basso al centro C. Brancaccio. Raffigura un gruppo di figure, tra cui un bambino che sembra protendersi verso un animale, si può sup...
Category

19th Century Impressionist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

Original 70's Hand Painted Textile Design Gouache abstract morden White Paper
Located in ALCOY/ALCOI, ES
Abstract Expressionist design. Sealed on the back with the design studio name and number . Ilegible signature We offer a small number of these original illustration designs by this ...
Category

1970s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache

Untitled
Located in Barcelona, BARCELONA
the painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Category

1980s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media

series "Shells", 86x44 cm, acrylic on paper
Located in Yerevan, AM
series "Shells", 86x44 cm, acrylic on paper The work is sold without a frame and mat
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

VERTICAL BRUSH STROKES
Located in Aventura, FL
Original gouache on paper. Hand signed and dated lower front. Artwork sheet size 22 x 10 inches. Custom framed as pictured. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of aut...
Category

1990s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache

Original ink on Paper, 30 x 40 cm, Contemporary Landscape Botanic Expressionist
Located in Carballo, ES
Black And White Minimal Painting is an original artwork realized by TUSET in 2020. We can frame it in natural wood or black on request. The title of this works is "From the Apollon...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Handmade Paper

Italian Contemporary Art by Fred Borghesi - Whatever Man
Located in Paris, IDF
Watercolor and collage on paper Fred Borghesi is an Italian artist born in 1987 who lives and works in London, UK. He is above all a multidisciplinary a...
Category

2010s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Italian Contemporary Art by Fred Borghesi - Silent Shout
Located in Paris, IDF
Watercolor on paper Fred Borghesi is an Italian artist born in 1987 who lives and works in London, UK. He is above all a multidisciplinary artist, const...
Category

2010s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Winter Coming
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Donna Dearden'; additionally signed on old backing, titled, 'Winter Coming' and painted circa 1975. A semi-abstracted study of abscised leaves against a variegat...
Category

1970s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache

Abstract expressionism vivid spiritual oil pastels on paper "Angel"
Located in VÉNISSIEUX, FR
This painting "Angel", created in the style of abstract expressionism and spiritual symbolism, was done by French artist Natalya Mougenot during a challenging period in her life. She...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Oil Pastel

Untitled - Contemporary Monochrome Minimalist Square Drawing in Grey and White
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Jon Probert b. 1966 Untitled, 2024 pencil drawing 58.5 x 58.5 cm 23 x 23 in signed verso Having studied Fine Art and Art History at Newcastle University and lived in London for many...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Histories (B44)
Located in Fairfield, CT
Beeswax, ink, metallic powder on vintage hand made paper. Does not include framing.
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Wax, Handmade Paper

Three Ponds - Contemporary Expressive Landscape Oil Pastel Painting
Located in Salzburg, AT
Janusz Kokot was born in Kalisz in 1960. He studied at the Pedagogical University in Częstochowa at the Art Institute. He practices painting and drawing. In the years 1988 - 2020 he ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Oil Pastel

Ink on recycled paper, abstract and poetic expressionism, black on white
Located in Carballo, ES
Black And White Minimal Painting is an original artwork realized by TUSET in 2019. The work is unframed but has a rigid support on the back. The title of this works is "From the A...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Handmade Paper

'Untitled', By Haley Prestifilippo, Graphite Drawing on Paper
Located in Oklahoma City, OK
This 7.75" x 7.75" graphite on paper framed drawing is by Haley Prestifilippo. This graphite work presents a striking contrast between detailed and abstract elements. In the upper le...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Graphite

Original 70's Hand Painted Textile Design Gouache abstract morden White Paper
Located in ALCOY/ALCOI, ES
Abstract Expressionist design. Sealed on the back with the design studio name and number . Ilegible signature We offer a small number of these original illustration designs by this ...
Category

1970s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache

Natural East Indian painting, turmeric yellow and graphite on canvas
Located in Carballo, ES
This new series by Danish artist Peter Kramer (1959, Roskilde, DK) based in Spain shows us a new way of working with natural and exotic elements. In this case, he uses the turmeric r...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Cotton, Organic Material, Tissue Paper, Graphite

Untitled
Located in Boca Raton, FL
Best known for his large-scale, monumental dango (Japanese for “rounded form”) sculptures, Jun Kaneko makes glazed ceramicsm that resemble inflated, three-dimensional canvases. Often...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Mixed Media, Handmade Paper

Study for Old Canal, Red and Blue (Rockaway, Morris Canal)
Located in New York, NY
Oscar Bluemner was a German and an American, a trained architect who read voraciously in art theory, color theory, and philosophy, a writer of art criticism both in German and English, and, above all, a practicing artist. Bluemner was an intense man, who sought to express and share, through drawing and painting, universal emotional experience. Undergirded by theory, Bluemner chose color and line for his vehicles; but color especially became the focus of his passion. He was neither abstract artist nor realist, but employed the “expressional use of real phenomena” to pursue his ends. (Oscar Bluemner, from unpublished typescript on “Modern Art” for Camera Work, in Bluemner papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, as cited and quoted in Jeffrey R. Hayes, Oscar Bluemner [1991], p. 60. The Bluemner papers in the Archives [hereafter abbreviated as AAA] are the primary source for Bluemner scholars. Jeffrey Hayes read them thoroughly and translated key passages for his doctoral dissertation, Oscar Bluemner: Life, Art, and Theory [University of Maryland, 1982; UMI reprint, 1982], which remains the most comprehensive source on Bluemner. In 1991, Hayes published a monographic study of Bluemner digested from his dissertation and, in 2005, contributed a brief essay to the gallery show at Barbara Mathes, op. cit.. The most recent, accessible, and comprehensive view of Bluemner is the richly illustrated, Barbara Haskell, Oscar Bluemner: A Passion for Color, exhib. cat. [New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2005.]) Bluemner was born in the industrial city of Prenzlau, Prussia, the son and grandson of builders and artisans. He followed the family predilection and studied architecture, receiving a traditional and thorough German training. He was a prize-winning student and appeared to be on his way to a successful career when he decided, in 1892, to emigrate to America, drawn perhaps by the prospect of immediate architectural opportunities at the Chicago World’s Fair, but, more importantly, seeking a freedom of expression and an expansiveness that he believed he would find in the New World. The course of Bluemner’s American career proved uneven. He did indeed work as an architect in Chicago, but left there distressed at the formulaic quality of what he was paid to do. Plagued by periods of unemployment, he lived variously in Chicago, New York, and Boston. At one especially low point, he pawned his coat and drafting tools and lived in a Bowery flophouse, selling calendars on the streets of New York and begging for stale bread. In Boston, he almost decided to return home to Germany, but was deterred partly because he could not afford the fare for passage. He changed plans and direction again, heading for Chicago, where he married Lina Schumm, a second-generation German-American from Wisconsin. Their first child, Paul Robert, was born in 1897. In 1899, Bluemner became an American citizen. They moved to New York City where, until 1912, Bluemner worked as an architect and draftsman to support his family, which also included a daughter, Ella Vera, born in 1903. All the while, Oscar Bluemner was attracted to the freer possibilities of art. He spent weekends roaming Manhattan’s rural margins, visiting the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey, sketching landscapes in hundreds of small conté crayon drawings. Unlike so many city-based artists, Bluemner did not venture out in search of pristine countryside or unspoiled nature. As he wrote in 1932, in an unsuccessful application for a Guggenheim Fellowship, “I prefer the intimate landscape of our common surroundings, where town and country mingle. For we are in the habit to carry into them our feelings of pain and pleasure, our moods” (as quoted by Joyce E. Brodsky in “Oscar Bluemner in Black and White,” p. 4, in Bulletin 1977, I, no. 5, The William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, Connecticut). By 1911, Bluemner had found a powerful muse in a series of old industrial towns, mostly in New Jersey, strung along the route of the Morris Canal. While he educated himself at museums and art galleries, Bluemner entered numerous architectural competitions. In 1903, in partnership with Michael Garven, he designed a new courthouse for Bronx County. Garven, who had ties to Tammany Hall, attempted to exclude Bluemner from financial or artistic credit, but Bluemner promptly sued, and, finally, in 1911, after numerous appeals, won a $7,000 judgment. Barbara Haskell’s recent catalogue reveals more details of Bluemner’s architectural career than have previously been known. Bluemner the architect was also married with a wife and two children. He took what work he could get and had little pride in what he produced, a galling situation for a passionate idealist, and the undoubted explanation for why he later destroyed the bulk of his records for these years. Beginning in 1907, Bluemner maintained a diary, his “Own Principles of Painting,” where he refined his ideas and incorporated insights from his extensive reading in philosophy and criticism both in English and German to create a theoretical basis for his art. Sometime between 1908 and 1910, Bluemner’s life as an artist was transformed by his encounter with the German-educated Alfred Stieglitz, proprietor of the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue. The two men were kindred Teutonic souls. Bluemner met Stieglitz at about the time that Stieglitz was shifting his serious attention away from photography and toward contemporary art in a modernist idiom. Stieglitz encouraged and presided over Bluemner’s transition from architect to painter. During the same period elements of Bluemner’s study of art began to coalesce into a personal vision. A Van Gogh show in 1908 convinced Bluemner that color could be liberated from the constraints of naturalism. In 1911, Bluemner visited a Cézanne watercolor show at Stieglitz’s gallery and saw, in Cézanne’s formal experiments, a path for uniting Van Gogh’s expressionist use of color with a reality-based but non-objective language of form. A definitive change of course in Bluemner’s professional life came in 1912. Ironically, it was the proceeds from his successful suit to gain credit for his architectural work that enabled Bluemner to commit to painting as a profession. Dividing the judgment money to provide for the adequate support of his wife and two children, he took what remained and financed a trip to Europe. Bluemner traveled across the Continent and England, seeing as much art as possible along the way, and always working at a feverish pace. He took some of his already-completed work with him on his European trip, and arranged his first-ever solo exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig, and Elberfeld, Germany. After Bluemner returned from his study trip, he was a painter, and would henceforth return to drafting only as a last-ditch expedient to support his family when his art failed to generate sufficient income. Bluemner became part of the circle of Stieglitz artists at “291,” a group which included Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Arthur Dove. He returned to New York in time to show five paintings at the 1913 Armory Show and began, as well, to publish critical and theoretical essays in Stieglitz’s journal, Camera Work. In its pages he cogently defended the Armory Show against the onslaught of conservative attacks. In 1915, under Stieglitz’s auspices, Bluemner had his first American one-man show at “291.” Bluemner’s work offers an interesting contrast with that of another Stieglitz architect-turned-artist, John Marin, who also had New Jersey connections. The years after 1914 were increasingly uncomfortable. Bluemner remained, all of his life, proud of his German cultural legacy, contributing regularly to German language journals and newspapers in this country. The anti-German sentiment, indeed mania, before and during World War I, made life difficult for the artist and his family. It is impossible to escape the political agenda in Charles Caffin’s critique of Bluemner’s 1915 show. Caffin found in Bluemner’s precise and earnest explorations of form, “drilled, regimented, coerced . . . formations . . . utterly alien to the American idea of democracy” (New York American, reprinted in Camera Work, no. 48 [Oct. 1916], as quoted in Hayes, 1991, p. 71). In 1916, seeking a change of scene, more freedom to paint, and lower expenses, Bluemner moved his family to New Jersey, familiar terrain from his earlier sketching and painting. During the ten years they lived in New Jersey, the Bluemner family moved around the state, usually, but not always, one step ahead of the rent collector. In 1917, Stieglitz closed “291” and did not reestablish a Manhattan gallery until 1925. In the interim, Bluemner developed relationships with other dealers and with patrons. Throughout his career he drew support and encouragement from art cognoscenti who recognized his talent and the high quality of his work. Unfortunately, that did not pay the bills. Chronic shortfalls were aggravated by Bluemner’s inability to sustain supportive relationships. He was a difficult man, eternally bitter at the gap between the ideal and the real. Hard on himself and hard on those around him, he ultimately always found a reason to bite the hand that fed him. Bluemner never achieved financial stability. He left New Jersey in 1926, after the death of his beloved wife, and settled in South Braintree, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, where he continued to paint until his own death in 1938. As late as 1934 and again in 1936, he worked for New Deal art programs designed to support struggling artists. Bluemner held popular taste and mass culture in contempt, and there was certainly no room in his quasi-religious approach to art for accommodation to any perceived commercial advantage. His German background was also problematic, not only for its political disadvantages, but because, in a world where art is understood in terms of national styles, Bluemner was sui generis, and, to this day, lacks a comfortable context. In 1933, Bluemner adopted Florianus (definitively revising his birth names, Friedrich Julius Oskar) as his middle name and incorporated it into his signature, to present “a Latin version of his own surname that he believed reinforced his career-long effort to translate ordinary perceptions into the more timeless and universal languages of art” (Hayes 1982, p. 189 n. 1). In 1939, critic Paul Rosenfeld, a friend and member of the Stieglitz circle, responding to the difficulty in categorizing Bluemner, perceptively located him among “the ranks of the pre-Nazi German moderns” (Hayes 1991, p. 41). Bluemner was powerfully influenced in his career by the intellectual heritage of two towering figures of nineteenth-century German culture, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. A keen student of color theory, Bluemner gave pride of place to the formulations of Goethe, who equated specific colors with emotional properties. In a November 19, 1915, interview in the German-language newspaper, New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (Abendblatt), he stated: I comprehend the visible world . . . abstract the primary-artistic . . . and after these elements of realty are extracted and analyzed, I reconstruct a new free creation that still resembles the original, but also . . . becomes an objectification of the abstract idea of beauty. The first—and most conspicuous mark of this creation is . . . colors which accord with the character of things, the locality . . . [and which] like the colors of Cranach, van der Weyden, or Durer, are of absolute purity, breadth, and luminosity. . . . I proceed from the psychological use of color by the Old Masters . . . [in which] we immediately recognize colors as carriers of “sorrow and joy” in Goethe’s sense, or as signs of human relationship. . . . Upon this color symbolism rests the beauty as well as the expressiveness, of earlier sacred paintings. Above all, I recognize myself as a contributor to the new German theory of light and color, which expands Goethe’s law of color through modern scientific means (as quoted in Hayes 1991, p. 71). Hayes has traced the global extent of Bluemner’s intellectual indebtedness to Hegel (1991, pp. 36–37). More specifically, Bluemner made visual, in his art, the Hegelian world view, in the thesis and antithesis of the straight line and the curve, the red and the green, the vertical and the horizontal, the agitation and the calm. Bluemner respected all of these elements equally, painting and drawing the tension and dynamic of the dialectic and seeking ultimate reconciliation in a final visual synthesis. Bluemner was a keen student of art, past and present, looking, dissecting, and digesting all that he saw. He found precedents for his non-naturalist use of brilliant-hued color not only in the work Van Gogh and Cezanne, but also in Gauguin, the Nabis, and the Symbolists, as well as among his contemporaries, the young Germans of Der Blaue Reiter. Bluemner was accustomed to working to the absolute standard of precision required of the architectural draftsman, who adjusts a design many times until its reality incorporates both practical imperatives and aesthetic intentions. Hayes describes Bluemner’s working method, explaining how the artist produced multiple images playing on the same theme—in sketch form, in charcoal, and in watercolor, leading to the oil works that express the ultimate completion of his process (Hayes, 1982, pp. 156–61, including relevant footnotes). Because of Bluemner’s working method, driven not only by visual considerations but also by theoretical constructs, his watercolor and charcoal studies have a unique integrity. They are not, as is sometimes the case with other artists, rough preparatory sketches. They stand on their own, unfinished only in the sense of not finally achieving Bluemner’s carefully considered purpose. The present charcoal drawing is one of a series of images that take as their starting point the Morris Canal as it passed through Rockaway, New Jersey. The Morris Canal industrial towns that Bluemner chose as the points of departure for his early artistic explorations in oil included Paterson with its silk mills (which recalled the mills in the artist’s childhood home in Elberfeld), the port city of Hoboken, Newark, and, more curiously, a series of iron ore mining and refining towns, in the north central part of the state that pre-dated the Canal, harkening back to the era of the Revolutionary War. The Rockaway theme was among the original group of oil paintings that Bluemner painted in six productive months from July through December 1911 and took with him to Europe in 1912. In his painting journal, Bluemner called this work Morris Canal at Rockaway N.J. (AAA, reel 339, frames 150 and 667, Hayes, 1982, pp. 116–17), and exhibited it at the Galerie Fritz Gurlitt in Berlin in 1912 as Rockaway N. J. Alter Kanal. After his return, Bluemner scraped down and reworked these canvases. The Rockaway picture survives today, revised between 1914 and 1922, as Old Canal, Red and Blue (Rockaway River) in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C. (color illus. in Haskell, fig. 48, p. 65). For Bluemner, the charcoal expression of his artistic vision was a critical step in composition. It represented his own adaptation of Arthur Wesley’s Dow’s (1857–1922) description of a Japanese...
Category

20th Century American Modern Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal

Shape 22 (2019) - Abstract shape, minimalist gestural, deep red & white on paper
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Shape 22 (2019) by Ryan Park of Shapes Only Abstract, nonobjective, gestural, geometric art, acrylic on 300GSM archival paper. Abstract shape innovated by the artist. Neutral pal...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Acrylic, Archival Paper

Tiger Moth
Located in New York, NY
Kiki Smith Tiger Moth, 2020 Ink and colored pencil on Twin Rocker hand made paper with deckled edges Pencil signed and dated by Kiki Smith on the front Fram...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Color Pencil, Handmade Paper

Hideout
Located in Columbia, MO
Lita Kenyon was born in Marinette, Wisconsin. She attended Columbia College for her BFA, and earned her MA from Northern Illinois University 1982. She’s been featured in Empty Mirror...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Charcoal, Oil, Wood Panel, Archival Paper

Italian Contemporary Art by Fred Borghesi - Untitled
Located in Paris, IDF
Watercolor on paper Fred Borghesi is an Italian artist born in 1987 who lives and works in London, UK. He is above all a multidisciplinary artist, const...
Category

2010s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Drypoint

Italian Contemporary Art by Fred Borghesi - Old Lady Draws
Located in Paris, IDF
Watercolor and collage on paper, Fred Borghesi is an Italian artist born in 1987 who lives and works in London, UK. He is above all a multidisciplinary artist, constantly switching ...
Category

2010s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Graphite paint, tissue paper, turmeric and cotton, natural yellow
Located in Carballo, ES
This new series by Danish artist Peter Kramer (1959, Roskilde, DK) based in Spain shows us a new way of working with natural and exotic elements. In this case, he uses the turmeric r...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Post-Minimalist Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Cotton, Organic Material, Tissue Paper, Graphite

No title 2, Abstract Watercolor
Located in Miami Beach, FL
No title 2, 2018 by Rodrigo Zampol Black ink on paper Dimensions: 67 cm H x 50 cm W Weight: 1 kg Unframed Unique piece Signed on back The piece has a ...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

Nancy Cohen "Topography of the Body" Paper Pulp and Handmade Paper
Located in New York, NY
Line is the operative formal element in the work shown here, but there are many other lines in play. Pieces walk a line between drawings that might be tapestries or sculptures or pa...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Handmade Paper

Georgian Contemporary Art by Dali Nazarishvili - Lake
Located in Paris, IDF
Watercolour on French paper Framed, 50 x 60.5 x 1 cm, paper frame Dali Nazarishvili is a Georgian female artist born in 1958 who lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. Since 2001, she...
Category

2010s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Georgian Contemporary Art by Dali Nazarishvili - Sunset
Located in Paris, IDF
Watercolour on paper Framed, 39 x 51.5 x 1.5 cm (Plastic brown frame with gold) Dali Nazarishvili is a Georgian female artist born in 1958 who lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. S...
Category

2010s Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Squiggle no.8
Located in AMSTERDAM, NH
Sandi Gehring (1957), American artist living and working in Amsterdam. Education; Art Students League, NY and Wackers Academie, Amsterdam. Currently repr...
Category

2010s Abstract Geometric Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

Snowflakes 152 Trance Fusion, Ying and Yang, Planets, Pencil Mandala
Located in Kent, CT
Meticulously intricate patterns and little vignettes with tiny ringed planets and galactic cosmos reach outward from the center of this circular mandala. Two perfectly balanced Ying ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Graphite

Time Warp
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This fabric work titled "Time Warp" is an original artwork by Kelly Kozma made of hand embroidery, colored pencil & acrylic paint on paper. The piece measures 15”h by 15”w framed. K...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Thread, Acrylic, Archival Paper, Color Pencil

Landscape BW Original Landscape Drawing Large Size , by Marilina Marchica
Located in Agrigento, AG
Title: Landscape BW Medium: Mineral oxides on Canson paper Size: 50 x 70 cm Year: 2024 Certificate of authenticity included One-of-a-kind artwork – not a print Landscape BW is an or...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pigment

Belarusian Contemporary Art by Dasha Buben - Conversations with my Inner Child
Located in Paris, IDF
Color pencils on paper Framed 40x 50 cm Dasha Buben is a Belarusian artist born in 1982 who lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. She graduated from the Belarusia...
Category

2010s Abstract Paper Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Color Pencil

Paper abstract drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Paper abstract drawings and watercolors available on 1stDibs. While artists have worked in this medium across a range of time periods, art made with this material during the 21st Century is especially popular. If you’re looking to add Abstract drawings and watercolors created with this material to introduce a provocative pop of color and texture to an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, red, purple and other colors. There are many well-known artists whose body of work includes ceramic sculptures. Popular artists on 1stDibs associated with pieces like this include Mila Akopova, Fieroza Doorsen , Martin Reyna , and Renato Garza Cervera. Frequently made by artists working in the Abstract, Contemporary, all of these pieces for sale are unique and many will draw the attention of guests in your home. Not every interior allows for large Paper abstract drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 0.1 inches across are also available Prices for abstract drawings and watercolors made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1 and tops out at $400,000, while the average work can sell for $1,500.

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