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Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

CONCEPTUAL STYLE

In 1967, artist Sol LeWitt wrote that in “Conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.” He was giving a name to an art movement that had emerged in the 1960s in which artists were less focused on their medium being something traditionally “artistic” and instead engaged in using any object, movement, form, action or place to express an idea.

LeWitt’s work was featured alongside an assemblage of notes, drawings and outlines by other artists in “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art,” a groundbreaking show at New York City’s School of Visual Arts curated by Mel Bochner, another leading exponent of Conceptualism. Building on radical 20th-century statements, like Fountain (1917) by French artist Marcel Duchamp, Conceptual artists around Europe and North and South America were not interested in the commercial art scene and rather directly challenged its systems and values.

Stretching into the 1970s, this movement has also been called Post-Object art and Dematerialized art. Conceptual art reflected a larger era of social and political upheaval. Pieces associated with the style range from Roelof Louw’s Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (1967) — a work of installation art that sees fresh oranges stacked into a pyramid from which visitors are allowed to take one orange away — to On Kawara’s “Today” series, which saw the Japanese artist carefully painting a date in white acrylic on canvases consisting of a single color from 1966 to his death in 2014. Artists such as Ed Ruscha, who created the Twentysix Gasoline Stations book — a collection of photos of gas stations that is widely said to be the first modern artists’ book — made photography a major platform for Conceptual art, as did Bruce Nauman, who burned one of Ruscha's books and then photographed it for his own.

Conceptual art’s legacy of questioning artistic authorship, ownership and how to work with complex ideas of space and time had a significant influence on the decades of culture that followed, and it continues to inform art today.

The collection of Conceptual photography, paintings and sculptures on 1stDibs includes artworks by John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth and others.

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Style: Conceptual
Tippie Comic Strip Original Art - Female Cartoonist
Located in Miami, FL
An early example from pioneering Female Cartoonist/ Illustrator Edwina Dumm, who draws a comic strip from her long-running cartoon series Tippie which lasted for almost five decades. Signed and dated Edwina, 9-25, matted but unframed. Frances Edwina Dumm (1893 – April 28, 1990) was a writer-artist who drew the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie for nearly five decades; she is also notable as America's first full-time female editorial cartoonist. She used her middle name for the signature on her comic strip, signed simply Edwina. Biography One of the earliest female syndicated cartoonists, Dumm was born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and lived in Marion and Washington Courthouse, Ohio throughout her youth before the family settled down in Columbus.[1] Her mother was Anna Gilmore Dennis, and her father, Frank Edwin Dumm, was an actor-playwright turned newspaperman. Dumm's paternal grandfather, Robert D. Dumm, owned a newspaper in Upper Sandusky which Frank Dumm later inherited. Her brother, Robert Dennis Dumm, was a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, and art editor for Cole Publishing Company's Farm & Fireside magazine. In 1911, she graduated from Central High School in Columbus, Ohio, and then took the Cleveland-based Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course. Her name was later featured in Landon's advertisements. While enrolled in the correspondence course, she also took a business course and worked as a stenographer at the Columbus Board of Education. In 1915, Dumm was hired by the short-lived Republican newspaper, the Columbus Monitor, to be a full-time cartoonist.[2] Her first cartoon was published on August 7, 1915, in the debut issue of the paper. During her years at the Monitor she provided a variety of features including a comic strip called The Meanderings of Minnie about a young tomboy girl and her dog, Lillie Jane, and a full-page editorial cartoon feature, Spot-Light Sketches[3]. She drew editorial cartoons for the Monitor from its first edition (August 7, 1915) until the paper folded (July 1917). In the Monitor, her Spot-Light Sketches was a full-page feature of editorial cartoons, and some of these promoted women's issues. Elisabeth Israels Perry, in the introduction to Alice Sheppard's Cartooning for Suffrage (1994), wrote that artists such as Blanche Ames Ames, Lou Rogers and Edwina Dumm produced: ...a visual rhetoric that helped create a climate more favorable to change in America's gender relations... By the close of the suffrage campaign, women's art reflected the new values of feminism, broadened its targets, and attempted to restate the significance of the movement.[4] After the Monitor folded, Dumm moved to New York City, where she continued her art studies at the Art Students League. She was hired by the George Matthew Adams Service[5] to create Cap Stubbs and Tippie, a family strip following the lives of a boy Cap, his dog Tippie, their family, and neighbors. Cap's grandmother, Sara Bailey, is prominently featured, and may have been based on Dumm's own grandmother, Sarah Jane Henderson, who lived with their family. The strip was strongly influenced by Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as Dumm’s favorite comic, Buster Brown by Richard F. Outcault. Dumm worked very fast; according to comics historian Martin Sheridan, she could pencil a daily strip in an hour.[6] Her love of dogs is evident in her strips as well as her illustrations for books and magazines, such as Sinbad, her weekly dog page which ran in both Life and the London Tatler. She illustrated Alexander Woollcott's Two Gentlemen and a Lady. For Sonnets from the Pekinese and Other Doggerel (Macmillan, 1936) by Burges Johnson (1877–1963), she illustrated "Losted" and other poems. From the 1931 through the 1960s, she drew another dog for the newspaper feature Alec the Great, in which she illustrated verses written by her brother, Robert Dennis Dumm. Their collaboration was published as a book in 1946. In the late 1940s, she drew the covers for sheet music by her friend and neighbor, Helen Thomas, who did both music and lyrics. During the 1940s, she also contributed Tippie features to various comic books including All-American Comics and Dell Comics. In 1950, Dumm, Hilda Terry, and Barbara Shermund...
Category

1920s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Color Pencil, Graphite

#2209G, David Jones, Ink on Paper, Contemporary Minimalist drawing for sale
Located in Deddington, GB
#2209G by David Jones [2022] original and hand signed by the artist Ink on Paper Image size: H:40 cm x W:29 cm Complete Size of Unframed Work: H:40 cm x W...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

PEC No.75. 1975, paper, ink, 31x23, 4 cm
Located in Riga, LV
PEC No.75. 1975, paper, ink, 31x23,4 cm Lev Kropivnitsky / Лев Евгеньевич Кропивницкий (1922-1994) Russian nonconformist artists, poet, art critic. Since the end of 1950s, he wor...
Category

1970s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

"NeoRealism (on the Subway)" conceptual, text based work on paper
Located in New York, NY
38"x25" signed by the artist, David Kramer. (oil, enamel, acrylic, pencil on gessoed paper) In this conceptual work on paper, the text "Keeping it Real...Whatever That Means" is wr...
Category

2010s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Enamel

RIC: Random Internet Cat #4
Located in New York, NY
Random Internet Cats 
Robotically-fabricated drawings on paper, these series formally deal with mediation from screen image to ‘drawing’ while using a computer-controlled pen plotte...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Archival Ink

RIC: Random Internet Cat #2
Located in New York, NY
Random Internet Cats 
Robotically-fabricated drawings on paper, these series formally deal with mediation from screen image to ‘drawing’ while using a computer-controlled pen plotte...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Mid-20th Century Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Joseph McCarthy as Baby New Year on a Hobbyhorse
Located in New York, NY
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1950s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Four Years (The Count) (2020) by street artist City Kitty, graffiti MTA poster
Located in Jersey City, NJ
"Four Years of Frustration, Delays & Missed Appointments (The Count)" (2020) by street artist City Kitty 18.25 x 12.25 x .75" Ink, acrylic and color pencil on MTA poster...
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Erotic French painter - 19th century figure drawings - Nudes - Ink on paper
Located in Varmo, IT
French painter (19th century) - Four erotic scenes. 17 x 24 cm without frames, 21.5 x 28.5 cm with frames. Antique ink drawings on paper, in wood...
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Late 19th Century Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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The Racing Horses
By Pierre Gaillardot
Located in London, GB
'The Racing Horses', gouache on art paper (circa 1970s), by Pierre Gaillardot. France has produced some of the world’s greatest horses and riders, wi...
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1970s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Portrait of Elegant Young Society Lady In Purple Stripey Top Exquisite Drawing
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Portrait of an Elegant Lady original watercolour painting on paper by Marjorie Schiele (1913-2008) *see notes below piece of paper is 14 x 10 inches In good condition, though with mi...
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Early 20th Century Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Modern Dancers
By Mick Micheyl
Located in London, GB
'Modern Dancers', pastel, ink and gouache on fine art paper by French artist, singer and sculptor, Mick Micheyl (1964). Two elegant young men are depicted in a graceful dancing pose, arms outstretched, their lithe bodies so agile and limber. Perhaps one of the dancers was her friend, Philippe, to whom the painting is dedicated on the bottom. The dedication says: 'For you Philippe, all my friendship'. Signed: 'Mick Micheyl'. The work has been newly framed and glazed after having been acquired in the S. of France. It is in fair vintage condition commensurate with age showing minor blemishing on the paper. Upon request a video of the piece can be provided. Dimensions with Frame: H 75 cm / 29.5" W 61 cm / 24" Dimensions without Frame: H 56 cm / 22" W 42 cm / 16.5" About the Artist: Mick Micheyl (1922 - 2019) was born in Lyon and had a busy and rewarding artistic career as a singer, producer, reviewer, metal sculptor, artist. After having received training at the School of Fine Arts in Lyon she became a painter and decorator in the theatre but then commenced a career in the musical activities of a theatrical troupe. She won the ABC competition in Paris in 1949 with a song, Le Marchand de Poésie, which she composed herself. She then performed in many cabarets: L'Échelle de Jacob, Harlequin and Liberty's. In the 1950s she was one of the most important French cabaret singers of that period. One of her titles, 'Un Gamin de Paris', became one of the French standards and also performed by Yves Montand and Robert Clary...
Category

1960s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

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"COWBOY ON HORSE" WESTERN
Located in San Antonio, TX
Joe Rader Roberts (1925 - 1982) Lockhart/Houston Artist Size: 12.5 x 10 Frame: 18.5 x 15.5 Medium: Marker "Cowboy on Horse" Joe Rader Roberts (1925-198...
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20th Century Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Permanent Marker

1930's Original Parisian Fashion Illustration Watercolor Black Oriental Dress
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Very stylish, unique and original 1930's French fashion design, no doubt of Parisian origin. The painting, executed in gouache/ watercolor and pencil, is dated to the upper corner ...
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Mid-20th Century Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

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1930's Original Parisian Fashion Watercolor Blue Floral Summer Dress
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
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White Cat, Fashion Art Oil Painting by Erik Freyman
Located in Long Island City, NY
An 80's style Art Deco oil painting of a fashionable lady petting her precious cat by contemporary artist Erik Freyman. The work is signed lower left, unframed. White Cat Erik Freym...
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1980s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Oil, Board

"Veneer" Figurative Drawing, Color Pencil, Ballpoint Pen, Graphite
Located in Philadelphia, PA
"Veneer" is an original oil pastel, ballpoint pen, color pencil, and graphite on arches paper work by Lauren Rinaldi. This piece ships in the pictured archival custom frame. The pape...
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21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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1940s Conceptual Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Conceptual portrait drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Conceptual portrait drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Patrick Lichty, and David Kramer. Frequently made by artists working with Ink, and Paper and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Conceptual portrait drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 9.22 inches across are also available. Prices for portrait 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 $280 and tops out at $4,000, while the average work sells for $2,300.

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